Against Useful Education

“They should only teach useful subjects in school!” Who among us has not looked at the education sector and thought, “I could change this for the better”? This is a good impulse. As citizens, we must all be interested and engaged in the education of our young people. And there are many issues with our education system. However, too often, the diagnosis of onlookers is that the schools place too much emphasis on “useless” subjects. The logical treatment, therefore, must be to focus more on “useful” subjects, at the expense of the “useless”. Useful subjects include the traditional STEM subjects, along with a variety of others, such as Business Studies. Critical thinking is to be the chief good of any education system. I understand the idea behind this. These subjects equip students to pursue careers in modern, exciting and socially beneficial occupations. They are, so to speak, the subjects of progress. But we must think critically about this line of thought. It is by no means a new idea. In John Locke’s 1693 treatise, ‘Some Thoughts Concerning Education’, he advocates for a curriculum with a foundation in the sciences. The arts, including poetry and music, are assigned the status of a “waste of time”, a charge that would echo through the ages, right into the venerable comment section of The Journal. Being an English teacher, I acknowledge my bias against this point of view. However, I hope to dispassionately make the case that an education system that unites the sciences and the humanities is not only useful, but in keeping with the traditions of Irish Republicanism. 

It is not difficult to discover how a subject is garlanded with the coveted status of ‘useful’. It is simply a numbers game, i.e. the perceived economic benefits that can be derived from training a workforce to work in certain fields. To be clear, it is beneficial, necessary and good that Ireland has students who are ready to respond to the challenges posed by a rapidly modernising world and the need for scientific advancements. However, the shape of the economy cannot be the main consideration when deciding on how to shape the minds and souls of our youth. It is the pernicious ideology of fiscal conservatism, among other ideologies, which would crush our individuality and reduce us to mere cogs in the vast economic apparatus of the state. However, before I am a teacher, before I am a worker, I am a man. The education and disciplining of my mind must first and foremost be devoted to my intellectual, moral and social development, as is enshrined in Article 42 of Bunreacht na hÉireann. In the shaping of the fully actualised human person, there are many subjects which can contribute. We can expand our definition of ‘useful’ subjects to include them by examining what uses we plan for them. The study of literature and languages develops not only our communication skills, a hallowed requirement in job descriptions across this island, but also our understanding of and sympathies for cultures and experiences unknown to us or misunderstood by us. The study of poetry and music trains our speech and understanding of rhythm, but also opens us to a method of communication that transcends borders and divisions. The study of history, religion and politics gives us practical knowledge of the story of humanity and our understanding of our place in the world, but also provides us with instruction in how we might, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves on this island, and how we may avoid regression into the horrors of the past. The humanities may not tell us scientific principles, but they teach us how to communicate them, show us how to relate to each other and furnish us with the materials to come to terms with ourselves, in our heart of hearts.

Gaeilge is probably the school subject most often saddled with the charge of uselessness. This is a curiously cross-ideological belief, finding fierce proponents in both left and right wing circles. This, to me, is indicative of the philosophy of usefulness that is found in educational philosophy. I have already mentioned John Locke as a proponent. However, Jean Jacques Rousseau, the secular patron saint of what is called progressive educational philosophy, gave voice to much the same sentiments. The Irish language is a precious aspect of our culture and every effort ought to be made to strengthen its position and increase its use across the nation. Hearing Irish being spoken in the streets should cease to be a pleasant surprise and become a joyfully common demonstration of the resilience of Irishness. However, there are many people in the areas of politics, business and media who argue fiercely that Irish should be relieved of its compulsory status at best and relegated to the pages of history at worst. They see Irish as an anachronism, of no use in the modern world, and too difficult to learn. Our students should be learning languages that are useful, they say, like Mandarin! I would posit that if our students are struggling with Irish, an Indo-European language that shares much of its vocabulary with Latin and has commonalities with many European languages, they will not find learning Mandarin an easy endeavour. Proponents of Irish acknowledge that there are issues that require fixing in its teaching, but difficulty is not an argument for getting rid of a subject. Nor is the old usefulness/uselessness debate. One’s ability to learn languages increases as one strengthens their ability in a second and third language. Therefore, improving the standard of Irish across the island will have very tangible intellectual benefits for students, as their ability to learn successive languages will be increased. An Irish person with proficiency in English and Gaeilge will find it relatively easy to pick up French or Spanish and would be well-equipped to tackle German or Polish. The perceived difficulty and impracticality of Irish are the result of poor language education in anglophone countries, a lack of imagination and an absence of will. Opening our eyes to the usefulness of Irish will do more for the language than the failed policies of the past. 

Irish Republicanism has always been a cultural, as well as a political, endeavour. Think of the Gaelic Revival, when our poets and playwrights sought to revive the Irish language and celebrate the myths and history of Ireland. Bringing the stories of Cúchulainn and the language of the Táin to the Irish people of the late 19th century and early 20th century was not a ploy to sell books, although it proved overwhelmingly popular. It was a way of providing a structure and a voice to Ireland’s past, the treasures of which we could lovingly curate for a new generation of Irish and firmly say “This is our culture, of which the imperial foe would deprive us. But they cannot take it from us.” Remember that the leaders of the 1916 Rising were not career soldiers, they were largely writers and poets, who fashioned the Rising to be a grand metaphor steeped in New Testament imagery. This was quite deliberate, as they saw Ireland’s political liberation and cultural revival as being essential aspects of their work. Two sides of an anti-imperialist coin. When W.B. Yeats associates Pearse with the “winged horse”, an image that refers to the poetic spirit, he is acknowledging Pearse, as well as the Rising itself as being linked to the larger Gaelic Revival, of which Yeats himself was an important part. It would be a betrayal of the spirit in which the Irish Republic was proclaimed to equivocate about the place and importance of cultural education. It is central to the independence movement and no faux-economic or intellectual concerns should blind us to this truth.

In their hearts, the people of Ireland know that the humanities and cultural education are important. Remember the outcry when history was temporarily changed to a non-compulsory subject for the Junior Cycle. This decision raised uproar, not just with teachers, but with hundreds of Irish men and women who believed in the importance of educating our children in the history of the world at large, as well as the peculiar history of Ireland. Think about the indignity one feels when one hears Irish mispronounced or disparaged by someone not of this island. Think about the pride one feels when listening to Irish music in good company. Culture is in the soul of the Irish. The humanities are our means to introducing our young people to our own culture and the culture of other peoples. This, to me, is very useful indeed.

le Stephen Moriarty