Do those who support this proposal really believe that forcing children to learn Gaelic will produce the Gaelic speakers they desire?

druarc, I don’t remember saying I wanted the school to produce gaelic speakers or save the language.  Do you believe that forcing children to learn history will make historians of them or art will make artists of them?  A bit ludicrous isn’t it, but by giving all the children the same subjects and languages in the same quantity they will leave Sleat Primary on a level playing field with all the options possible available to them.

Just last week I saw an advert in the local paperr, a local company looking for a PA (very well paid might I say) and I’m perfectly qualified to do the job except for one of the criteria - the language, Gaelic.  I went to Sleat Primary, I’m local but I can’t apply for the job.  No doubt some yank who’s learnt Gaelic as a hobby can move up here and take the job. 

This is what I see as a problem, these days unless I have Gaelic my employment opportunities in my own community are restricted to the service industry, hotels etc where the pay is crap and I’m competing against Poles who’ll work for pennies.  Now these aren’t the only jobs in the community but the 9-5 Monday to Friday office jobs or a lot of the higher profile jobs that I might aspire to are only available to Gaelic speakers.  There is more choice available to Gaelic speakers in our community.

Therefore locals like me are leaving the area anyway, because we can’t compete on a level playing field with those who have Gaelic.  This is our community, our future, our heritage, all I ask is that our children get an opportunity to grow up with all the options - 2 languages for ALL.

OK Seth you are not interested in producing Gaelic speakers or indeed saving the language – and you appear to be suffering the consequences of not learning Gaelic at Sleat Primary, presumably because when you went there it was a single stream English school – unlike the dual stream school that we now have, so you could now have gone into the GM for 7 years then into the GM classes at Portree High School for 2 more years.

You suggest that some ‘yank’ who has bothered to learn Gaelic might get the job recently advertised to which you refer– well I am not sure how you can criticise someone from across the pond for doing what you obviously have not done. Presumably said yank would have not even have had GM as a choice.

Also I think someone earlier suggested that the School Board adopted a neutral stance because they couldn’t agree which way to go – well that is not what the minutes of the Board’s meeting indicate.

When I went to school my parents did not see the point in GM so chose to put us in EM.  Not their fault they chose what they felt was best at the time - they weren’t to know the consequences for the future.  Admittedly my Mum has since said that if the school had been all Gaelic at the time she would have sent me there regardless as it is the local school - she still can’t see the point in GM!!  Figure that out.

As for those across the pond no offence intended.

Thirdly no idea about the school board’s opinion, do they have one, do I care, who knows?

draurc - 03 July 2006 07:53 PM

If they are correct then clearly English in the classroom does not get to 50% and indeed is remarkably low in the last three crucial years. To me that is not equally bilingual - it is very unequal…


...If this isn’t social engineering I don’t know what is

Draurc, it has already been explained why the levels of teaching / learning through each language are required.  The system follows tried and tested methods in other countries with bilingual minority language schools.  It is essential to have these levels so children attain fluency in both languages.

Social engineering - that’s ridiculous!  What do you think the master plan is - to create a community of bilingual speakers who will eventually take over the country, and, who knows, the world???  I hardly think so.  As Seth and others hint, by teaching children subjects such as history and maths, the intention is to broaden a child’s horizons in order that he or she is prepared to take advantage of the most opportunities available in life.  Bunsgoil Shlèite currently produces some children with Gaelic, some without.  A Gaelic school would produce (although not with a view to social engineering!) children fluent in both Gaelic and English, thus opening up more opportunities - where is the harm in that?!

‘’What do you think the master plan is - to create a community of bilingual speakers who will eventually take over the country, and, who knows, the world???’’

Not sure about the country or indeed the world - what concerns me is the future of Sleat.

Yes, we should all be very, very worried if all the children of Sleat should become bilingual!!!! - what might happen then?  Might they become multilingual and take over the Earth?!?!?

Actually, draurc is right.  A Gaelic school is about social engineering.  An English ‘mainstream’ school with a Gaelic unit is about social engineering - part of it having to swim very hard against the current.  An English only school (as they all were not long ago) is about social engineering.  Yep, primary education is social engineering.

You could engineer Sleat’s kids into being monolingual English speakers (which is what used to happen), or you could engineer them into having more chances in life and a comfortable relationship with where they come from.  It’s a community with two languages - and an education which doesn’t equip its kids with both those languages is a bad one.

Seth ‘s difficulty in getting access to all the jobs in Sleat (and all the knowledge, all the culture, all the history) must be a pretty frustrating experience at times.  A Gaelic school would mean no new generations would be stuck in that position.  (Unless their parents wanted them to be stuck, and used their choice to send them to another school).
But all is not lost for those who didn’t get the breaks.
Over the past few years quite a considerable number of Sleat people who had very little knowledge of Gaelic have done home study courses with SMO or the immersion course at SMO, and got themselves their fluency and a better job.
It takes a lot more effort and commitment than absorbing the language effortlessly from P1 onwards, but it can be done, and is being done.
I’ve met more people here and elsewhere than I could possibly count (myself included) who wish they’d had the chance of doing it the easy way in primary school. 
And I’m glad Seth you make it clear you mean no disrepect for any American who has made that effort and liked the place so much they applied for a job.
I’m really glad Sleat is a place with a really great mix of people.  I’d hate it to be a place with only “local shops and local jobs for local people”.

draurc, I wonder what you make of the local area committee councillors’ recommendation of a ‘Gaelic school with an English medium unit’ for Sleat.  How do you reckon that would work?

Well, initially it strikes me that it would be a case of replacing one group of children whose parents regard them as being treated as second class citizens with another group of children whose parents would also regard them as being treated as second class citizens – not much progress there!

That said, it does appear to have the element of choice and on that basis alone I would not dismiss it out of hand.

Needless to say this has not been clearly thought through by the esteemed councillor who raised it and the proposal itself raises numerous questions, to which, I suspect nobody knows the answers, though they may have opinions.

For example…..would the children play together and eat together? If so will they be free to speak whatever language they chose? Will all school activities be conducted with the whole school and if so will they be conducted exclusively in Gaelic? I could go on but I won’t............

If the children will be segregated so they should not cross each others paths I hardly consider that something we should be advocating.

I don’t think that anyone can really say whether they support this idea or not until it is made quite clear what is proposed would amount to and we would need a lot of detail to answer the questions that many will have, whichever side of the debate they are on.

The councillors’ proposal seems to be an attempt to tack a covering over the fence in the desperate hope nobody will notice they’re still sitting on it.
This is just playing with words, the most pitifully feeble spin.  It means absolutely no change to the existing situation.  Oh dear, councillors, so you don’t want bilingualism but you’re picking up doublespeak pretty fast......

Well, it’s now being reported that the Council voted in favour of a Gaelic medium school with an English unit.  This is a model that has never been tested anywhere else as far as I am aware but does seem to be the best compromise solution they could have come up with in the current political climate.  Are the councillors and the head of Education visionaries or something else entirely?

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