She had been reading a book about leaving her job and going out on her own as an entrepreneur. She was fundamentally against the idea of leaving a permanent and pensionable job that she had worked so hard to secure for a number of years. However, she found the idea of jacking in her job exhilarating so she was all in on everything the author was putting out there but she was ignoring all the chapters about leaving her job and planning an exit date. The most intriguing part of the book was the bits about the why of it all. What was her why. She found it hard to admit her whys. She was blinkered as to what her whys were. She questioned them before they were even verbalised. She wanted her whys to be about making money. However, really they were not about making money ultimately. She seemed to want to use her abilities and have them be seen and admired by others. She didnt like that she was like that. She was so used to her abilities being almost invisible in the world and how easily it seemed for them to be invisible. However, she thought that if she created some value in the world and on the internet world then at some point someone would want to give her money for them.
When she thought of her whys, she realised that her whys and her wants never involved doing things for other people. They always involved doing something in order that she would receive admiration and concretise and restore the identity she wanted to cultivate. She cared about how she was seen more than she cared about helping others. She wanted to be someone who helped others but she wasnt someone who helped others. The idea that humans beings are naturally selfish was something she knew but did not like to accept about herself. She decided to embrace it.
At the end of the day, she asked herself, did she care about others that much that she wanted to get up at night after her son went to sleep and begin another job. The answer was no. She wanted to have it all. She wanted to come up with ways to keep her son engaged and to keep him actively engaged. Like she wanted him to be an old style top that she spins and then she could make a cup of tea or get something done for the next day. She never thought that she would be this type of person or type of woman who was fixated on domestic affairs and on children. But the anchor was all she needed to get herself flying high.
She was circling in on topics. Like AI versus creativity in the context of kids. Purposeful Play from Montessori. She thought about doing a series of experiments on a broad range of activities such as ‘How to write a book with your child’ course. ‘How to draw a masterpiece with your child’ course. How to write a song with your child’ course. How to learn irish with your child course’ How to learn french with your child course. How to discover science with your child course. How to do maths with your child course. How to learn to read with your child course. How to make a podcast with your child course. She thought that she could calendar in an experiement for each day of the week on a topic and record it as a podcast for release after the holidays. She was about to do music in the orchestra and she thought the best thing to do would be to do music.
She thought that maybe she could write about herself and her interests and her background. Then do a series of experiments for 4 weeks or so and then write about them each night. At the weekend she would do a summary of the week and edit it for a blog post.
She was also interested in how to introduce play or purposeful play in order to help integrate individuals into a community. She laughed at herself when she read this back because she once more was trying to say that she was doing something admirable. But she needed to be honest with herself that all she wanted to do was wanted him to be an old style top that she spins and then she could make a cup of tea or get something done for the next day. She wanted to use something that she might be doing anyway and write about it because she thought she was a good writer. She also wanted to incorporate the identity that she had a masters in international relations and somehow she could shoehorn this into her mision statement and it would lend her some authenticity. Which it might if she had something of value to offer. As yet she didnt.
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This is a business I am setting up to speak directly to you. You are person I have had a few conversations with at one event and in those short snippets it felt connective and I felt that I wanted to reach you and wanted to hear you too. I felt a desire to reach you. I think because I sensed your vulnerability in this culture that we both live in and I saw the outsiderness that you might exist in. I wanted to tell you that I am seeking to look into the ways that I can find out about the Gaelscoil and how it works. How does it work to join a school where you dont know the language that is used. It is a language that is most often considered the target language in that environment. It is the one where there is a focus on it more than there is a focus on our Mother tongue. We aim to speak, use and learn it. We prize it. We treasure it. We nurture it. We also take it for granted.
My reason for reaching out to you is to say to you that you dont need to be afraid to have your little girl join a school where the language that is spoken often is Irish. It is the target language but there is no need for either you or your child to know any Irish to begin with. You will both learn as you go and your child will absorb it so easily and naturally that she will teach you. You will both be back at school together in the evenings learning together. You will be united in it as you both discover it together.
Why dont we set up schools where all the students and parents seek to learn and interact using elven? No, we set up schools in ireland where the emphasis is on learning Irish. It is not done in some feverish attempt to get ahead in the Irish language because of the potential future barriers in the way that Irish is often an obligatory subject.
Ever since I was a child, I was someone who looked at what everyone else was doing and thought twice about it. I absorbed it passively, but was slower to take it on as my own. It was to me never a perfect fit. I needed to arrive at a point where I wanted it for myself and then all the morass of indecision and doubt was displaced by my desire for control.
I am setting out to find out about this Gaelscoil endeavour. I am setting out as someone who does not seek to pursue the Irish language purely for itself. I am more interested in it as an established good and a desirable second language to develop my son’s capacity and cognitive abilities. I want to see what I get out of that too. I am going to find out about it and let you know.
Two things that were significant this week? Well one was something that I have been chewing on and wrestling to understand for many months now. What that is, is that I dont understand fully understand what phonological awareness. What is the difference between phonics and phonems? If he learns phonems that pertain to Irish words only, will he be able to recognise phonems that pertain to English words. Will there be a confusion of those there? What i am trying to understand is, and it is something I have accepted already to be true because I feel it, but i dont understand yet why this is true, how does learning Irish words or phonems that pertain to Irish words, develop a persons capacity for reading? One answer that springs to mind is that he learned what it means for words or sounds to rhyme. In that way he is able to annunciate with his voice and recognise with his mind that there are sounds that are similar. These make up different words. Maybe it is later that this get codified by the repetition of seeing these words or parts of words regularly and seeing how they are spelled. Hopefully, he has the type of brain that can remember these spellings and this will allow him to write them himself. I think that children are so capable of absorbing a lot of inforation that he will take them on easily. He will just add them in there in his brain and file them away in the rhyming file where cota, broga go. Like when we were at the film Wonka last night, Wonka was trying to come up with a word that ryhmed with noodle and sean was coming up with them over and over in his seat.
The second significant thing i noticed is that we were learning the song ‘Michealin muc’ and in it the singer sings, ‘chuaigh micealin muc ar an aonach la’, which I was emboldened to think that I knew exactly what it meant, thinkin it meant michein muc when to the fair day. However, after talking to my Mother, it apparently means he went to the fair one day. I never knew that!!! she went to school though irish my sister has a phd in irish poetry obviousl knew it too. So my son in listening to the strong sound of the singer annunciating the guteral ending of the ch as ‘aonach’ and he say ayn-achhhh!!! with the la immediately after it he says its ‘fla’, why oh why. He is picking up the word wrong.what is the point in him learning the songs if he is going to learn the words wrong and retain incorrect irish words. I told him that its la. He was so sure that he was right and that muinteor had taught them all of the irish words ther are in 2 months. I kept on insisting its la trying to get him to agree. But afterwards i thought…you know , he is probably developing his listening skills in hearing sounds and differentiating between fine distinctions in sounds. Maybe its that in irhs there is a gutteral sound there isnt in englight. Maybe he used his prior knowledge of englihs words to project that f sound on the sentence he was singing. Maybe when he finally learns the word la and what it means then he will realise and this will enhance his listening skills even more. I am teaching him all of these songs, ones from school and any others that i can find because i find it a good way to learn lots of language in a way that packs a lot it, but I realsie that he only knows that the word muc means pig because of the cute pink pig in the picture book where he presses the button to hear the song.