
Episodes

Wednesday Jan 15, 2020
Podcast 385, New Educate Together CEO, Emer Nowlan (15-1-20)
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020
Wednesday Jan 15, 2020
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
This week I bring you an interview with the new Chief Executive Officer of Educate Together, Dr. Emer Nowlan in the week she takes up her new appointment. Among the topics we discuss are:
- Her career in education to date: becoming a PE teacher, running a language school in Portugal
- Doing a masters and doctorate in UCD
- Being project manager for setting up second level Educate Together schools
- Working on the Migrant Teacher Project
- Challenges faced by migrant teachers who wish to teach in Ireland
- Lessons learned from the Migrant Teacher Project to date
- Anticipating her new role as CEO of Educate Together
- Plans for establishing new Educate Together schools
- How Educate Together has evolved over the last 40 years
- What equality-based education looks like
- How to promote equality-based education without stereotyping
- Educate Together’s role as school patron
- Enrolment policies for schools
- The work of CEO in Educate Together
- Her priorities for her term as CEO
- Challenges facing the Educate Together sector
- Characteristics of a principal in an Educate Together school
- Facilitating denominational religious instruction in Educate Together Schools
She names some people whose work she admires.

Wednesday May 29, 2019
Programme 368, John P. Miller on Holistic Education, pt 2 (29-5-19)
Wednesday May 29, 2019
Wednesday May 29, 2019
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
Theme tune by David Vesey
On this week's programme I bring you the second and final part of my interview with Professor John P. Miller from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. John P. Miller is the author of The Holistic Curriculum, the third edition of which was recently published. Among the matters we discussed on the programme this week were:
- The importance of examining our beliefs
- The soul as the unconditioned self
- The connection between holistic education and mental health
- The relationship between holistic education and affective education, humanistic education, confluent education and transpersonal education.
- The Holistic Ed Review started by Ron Miller
- The lack of university programmes in holistic education up to doctoral level
- What school is for
- The Sudbury Valley School
People mentioned by John P. Miller
- Suzuki Roshi (Zen mind beginner’s mind)
- Richard Alpert – Ram Dass
- Joseph Goldstein (meditation)
- Norman Feldman (meditation)
Books/authors mentioned on the programme:
- Education and Ecstasy by George Leonard.
- Carl Rogers Freedom to Learn
- The Tao Te Ching
- Emerson’s essays
- Thoreau’s Walden & On Civil Disobedience and his journals
- Maslow Toward a Psychology of Being
- Parker Palmer The Courage to Teach
- Gregory Cajete. His book is Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education (1994).
- Embers by Richard Wagamese
- Ron Miller What are schools for?
- Handbook on Holistic Education edited by John P. Miller et al.
- Love and Compassion: Exploring their role in Education by John P. Miller
- The Magic of Conflict by Thomas Crumm

Wednesday May 22, 2019
Programme 367, John P. (Jack) Miller on Holistic Education (22-5-19)
Wednesday May 22, 2019
Wednesday May 22, 2019
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
Theme tune by David Vesey
On this week's programme I speak to John P. (Jack) Miller, of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and author of of The Holistic Curriculum, about holistic education. Among the topics discussed on the programme are:
- What is holistic education?
- In a tradition from indigenous people, Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Rousseau, Emerson, Thoreau, Peabody and Tolstoy up to Waldorf, Montessori and Reggio Emilia.
- How The Equinox Holistic School in Toronto was inspired by and follows the ideas in Miller’s book, The Holistic Curriculum. The story of the school is told here.
- Use of textbooks and a holistic curriculum
- What is the experience of a holistic curriculum like for a student?
- Autonomy for children in holistic education settings
- Characteristics of teachers to teach holistically
- Difference between teaching a subject holistically and teaching the same subject conventionally
- Planning for holistic teaching
- James Bean and integrated curriculum
- Susan Drake and integrated curriculum
- Relationship between holistic education and wisdom
- The difference between contemplation and reflection and mindfulness
- Religious education and spirituality education
- The work of Thomas Moore on Spirituality and Education; also Parker Palmer and Rachel Kessler

Wednesday Mar 27, 2019
Programme 359, Thomas Moore on Spirituality Education (27-3-19)
Wednesday Mar 27, 2019
Wednesday Mar 27, 2019
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
Theme tune by David Vesey
This week my guest is Thomas Moore who gave a talk on "The Inner Landscape of the Educator in Difficult Times" in Marino Institute of Education earlier this year. Among the topics we discussed are:
- How as a culture we prefer training to education and the differences between them
- Where he would like education to take place
- Why the colours, sounds, images and textures around you matter when you learn
- Source of curriculum: What does it mean to be an educated person?
- What it requires of each of us to be human, to be good citizens
- The spiritual nature of humans in our search for meaning
- Having students go on a “pilgrimage” back to their childhood to get in touch with their essential selves
- Aspects of spirituality religions have traditionally ignored in their emphases on dogmatism and moralism
- Exploring basic questions through literature and the arts
He referred to Homer’s Odyssey, Horton Foote's play The Trip to Bountiful, and the poets Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens and John Keats.

Wednesday Jan 17, 2018
Programme 312, Gerry O'Connell on Religious Education, pt 2 (17-1-18)
Wednesday Jan 17, 2018
Wednesday Jan 17, 2018
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
On this week's programme I bring you the second part of my interview with Dr. Gerry O'Connell from the Marino Institute of Education where we talk about religious education and much more.
Among the topics discussed this week are the following:
- Prayer and religious education and how mindfulness was introduced to Catholic schools over two decades ago
- The power of prayer and mindfulness
- How do you define a practising Catholic if not by their attendance at church?
- The problem with large class sizes
- How to develop one’s religious imagination
- Integrating religious education with other subjects
- Accommodating children who don’t take religious education in a religious school
- How do prospective teachers learn to teach religion? Dr. Gerry O’Connel outlines seven elements that are key to his approach:
- Waiting and wondering
- The threshold experience
- Asking the question
- Gathering around the subject
- Journalling ( What did I learn? What does it say to where I am? What am I going to do about it?)
- Pushing back the horizon
- Concluding ritual

Wednesday Jan 10, 2018
Programme 311, Gerry O'Connell on Religious Education (10-1-18)
Wednesday Jan 10, 2018
Wednesday Jan 10, 2018
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
On this week's programme I speak to my colleague in the Marino Institute of Education, Dr. Gerry O'Connell about religious education. Gerry is a primary teacher and a teacher educator with vast experience and his ideas are grounded in this experience and in his scholarly work in the field. Among the topics discussed this week are the following:
- The difference between teaching religion and religious education
- The importance of starting with the students’ experiences
- The challenges of working with diverse student experiences
- The teaching methodology “Godly Play”
- Social media as a force of oppression
- Why contemplative space, depth of conversation or wonder and symbol or story are central to religious education
- Whether sacraments should be taught in school or in parishes
- What makes a teacher?
- Teaching as a vocation
- A perceived secularist agenda in some media organisations

Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
Programme 281, Literacy, Religion Teaching, & Being a Teaching Principal (22-2-17)
Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
Wednesday Feb 22, 2017
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's progrmame I bring you new material from three guests who previously appeared on the programme. Below I list the guests and put links to the programmes on which they featured:
Siobhán Keenan Fitzgerald on Public Speaking 1 and Public Speaking 2

Thursday Jun 25, 2015
Thursday Jun 25, 2015
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's programme my guest is Fr. Ron Nuzzi from the Alliance for Catholic Education at the University of Notre Dame. He was in Ireland to address the "Education in Crisis" conference in Mary Immaculate College in May this year. We spoke about Catholic education in the United States, about principals preparing their successors, and about multiple intelligences.

Wednesday Jan 28, 2015
Programme 202, Kevin Williams Discusses "School Ethos" (28-1-15)
Wednesday Jan 28, 2015
Wednesday Jan 28, 2015
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's programme I bring you the second part of my interview with Dr. Kevin Williams who recently retired as
Senior Lecturer from Mater Dei Institute of Education.
He
is also a former president of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland
and a research fellow at the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies.
On this week's programme he discusses matters related to the topic of school ethos.

Wednesday Oct 15, 2014
Programme 191, Maths Week, Religious Ed and Diversity in Teaching (15-10-14)
Wednesday Oct 15, 2014
Wednesday Oct 15, 2014
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's programme I spoke to Sheila Donegan about Maths Week, I spoke to Elaine Mahon about the National Religious Education Congress and I spoke to Elaine Keane and Manuela Heinz about Diversity in Initial Teacher Education.