TED Talks

Ken Robinson on 'School Kills Creativity'

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

 

I like this talk because Ken uses anecdotes and funny stories to help get his point across. He engages very well with the audience. His talk is very entertaining but also makes you think about the education. He also uses people's real stories on how they got to realise that they had such an amazing talent. Whereas it may quite a serious topic, Ken makes it easy to understand and quite humourous.

 

You should watch this talk because it is really interesting and insightful. He has some really good discussions that will really make you think whether or not he is right, and what can we do about it if he is. As a student in secondary school, I can relate to what he says about the hiraki in the school.

Engineering Lecture

On Tuesday the 13th of November we had an engineer Paul O'Donnell came in and spoke to us about engineering. Paul works as a Highway Construction Engineer from Engineering Ireland. Paul told us that Ireland has the safest roads in the world. Roads help the economy as well as providing good, fast ways of transport. Paul also told us about Masdar, a city that only uses renewable energy. He seemed to be very passionate about his work.

Physco-Analogy

Yesterday, the 23rd of October 2012, we had two psycho-analysts, Brain O'Connor and Liz Monaghan, come in to talk to us about psycho-analogy. Psycho-analysts make assesments and help people with specific, personal problems by talking and listening to them. They could tell what is happening in someone's unconscience mind by some of the things they say of if they make a 'slip-up' in their speech.
They took us about Sigmund Freud and how he understood that we don't always understand ourselves. Sigmund Freud did a lot of work to help us understand th workings of the unconscience mind.
Brain and Liz explain that we have a superego, our conscience mind, which is very small (like the top of the iceberg that is above the water line), our superego is the part of the mind that vtells us what is right and wrong. We then have our ego, which is the face we put out to the world, and then our unconscience mind, this part of our mind tells us to do things without thinking, we also store the things that we want to forget into our unconscience mind.

http://prezi.com/69ajnnur13ie/st-a/?res_nr=1&sis=2370718641

Interview

Interview

 

Q. Why did you decide to go to this school?

A. Lived near the school, local school, knew friends in the school

Q. Did you have any siblings in the school?

A. Brother John arrived 4 years after me.

Q. What subjects did you do?

A. Eng, Mat, Geo, His, Art, Irish

Q. Did you do any sport? If so, did you win any trophies for the school?

A. played rugby- got school colours- captained 7 a side which won league

Q. Did you have any favourite teachers?

A. Kingsley Scott- French teacher- had a motorbike… Buster O’ Neil-Latin- interesting dress sense- came out with random phil. Qs

Q. What were the punishment methods while you were at school?

A. threw dusters... Depended on the temper of the teachers or caned

Q. Did you pull any pranks while at school?

A. Went into Scott’s room and looked at his books- many other little things

Q.  Did you keep in contact with any other pupils?

A. Only with on boy, Robert Tweedy

Q. What is you fondest memory from school?

A. Winning the rugby league at school

Q. What are the main differences between this school and the school on Clyde Road?

A. The building is purpose built and massive in comparison and girls are allowed now.

Mark Pollock

Yesterday, the 16th of October 2012, we had a lecture from Mark Pollock. 14 years ago Mark went completely blind due to a detached retina during his final year of college at Trinity. He was studying Business and Economics. Mark was also a very keen rower while in college. Once Mark went blind he stopped everything, he denied that he had gone blind and spent most of his time at home blaming others for his misfortune.
By 2008 Mark had gotten back on to his feet again. He had started his own business and was travelling and giving lectures. He had gotten back into his sport and had won medals at the Commonwealth Games and taken part in many marathons all over the world. He was now preparing to do a 43 day long race to the South Pole. He had two team mates, Simon O'Donnell and Inge Solheim. They raised €100000 and after days of training they went off to Antarctica arriving there on the 16th of December 2008. After weeks of constant skiing (8-10 hours a day) Mark and his team arrived 5th at the South Pole.
In 2010 life put another challenge in Mark's way. After falling off a 2 storey balcony and breaking his back in two places Mark became paralysed from the stomach down. He found it difficult and frustrating to be lying in bed all day not being able to walk.
Now Mark is trying everything to help himself perhaps have the chance of walking again. He has been working with a company called 'Project Walk' as well as using Esko Robotic Legs. He says that even after a year and a bit he is already showing some improvements.
Every year there is a charity run held for Mark in Dublin, but now it has spread to all over the world. There are runs for him in many major cities around the world. The money raised at the run goes towards many various charities. The run is called 'Run in the Dark' (link below) and it will be held on the 14th of November this year.
http://www.runinthedark.org/

CD for Winter Fair

A friend and I have decided to create a CD to sell at our Transition Year's Winter Fair. The money we raise from selling the CD will go towards our TY trip to Uganda. We annouced our idea to the rest of the year and we got 25 people who were interested in getting involved. We have put together a playlist of some Christmas songs and some covers. We now have to decide who's doing what then try get to a recording studio or a room where we could record the CD. It will be tough but I'm sure it'll all work out okay! :)

Prezi

Earthquakes! on Prezi

For ICT class we had to use Prezi to dicuss whether you are more likely to die in an earthquake if you live in a developing coutry. I compared two eathquakes, one in a developed country (The Japan Earthquake in 2011) and one in a developing country (The Haiti Earthquake in 2010), and then I looked at what factors could affect the impact of an earthquake.

Lecture #3

On Tuesday the 25th of September we were visited by Denis Sexton of the Irish Society for Autism. Denis' lecture was based mainly on the characteristics of autism and autistic people. He got involved in autism because his son, John, who is 27 years old, has autism. Denis went through the different levels of autism, from where they do not speak at all to where they have only narrow speech. He also listed a couple of obsessions that autistic people may have, like closing doors and gates for example. I really found it interesting to learn about autism. It is something I have heard a lot about in my life but never really knew what it was about until yesterday. He really had an in depth knowledge of autism and really got that across.

Lecture #2

Yesterday, the 18th of September 2012, we had a lecture on Chernobyl. Two speakers, Siobheal Nic Eochaidh and Darragh McGrath, came to tell us about their trip to Chernobyl and the charity work they did there. On the 26th of April 1986 the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant had a catastrophic explosion. Though the power plant is in Ukraine the winds on that day blew a lot of the nuclear waste over to Belarus. They speakers didn't actually have a lot of time but they managed to tell us a lot about what they saw and felt while they were at the orphanage. They seemed to have built up a strong relationship with some of the children who had been affected by the explosion even though they had only been there for a week. I enjoyed hearing about their work over in Belarus, it shocked me though to hear about how little was being done by the government in Belarus to help these children. I didn't actually know very much an the Chernobyl explosion before their lecture, now I feel that I learnt a lot about the explosion and how even after 26 years there are still big problems linked to it going on.

TY Trip to the Aran Islands

For our TY Irish Culture trip we went to Inis Mór, the largest of the three Aran Islands. We left at 7 o'clock on a Monday morning and arrived after a 4 and a half hour bus journey and a 45 minute boat journey. On the first evening we went to our hostels and the for a long walk around a part of the island. After the walk we arrived at the hotel for dinner then we went on to the community centre for a 'Trath na gCeist'. After this we went back to our hostel.

The next day we cycled around the island visiting some sites on the island. It took about 5 hours and afterwards we were so tired. That night we had a ceile which was great fun.

We left the island the next day and made our way home.