Removal of references to Christmas in school book ‘not consensus among teachers’

A primary school teacher based in Dublin who drew attention to the apparent removal of references to Christmas/Nollaig in the textbook Abair Liom for 5th class pupils, has described the change in language, which makes reference to ‘winter markets’ instead, as not something that teachers or parents have advocated for while others involved in Catholic education have labelled it as a “downgrading of anything Christian”.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Aisling Considine, a primary school teacher and general election candidate for Aontú, said that although the publisher of the book responded to queries saying that the changes were based on ‘teacher feedback’, this is not what Ms Considine has experienced in the profession.

“This is not the consensus among teachers,” she said. “There was not an appetite among teachers at all. What I would say happened is that a handful of activist teachers got involved and they’re the reason why or maybe the people who work for the publishers think that they know better. But I can tell you that it’s not coming from parents and it’s not coming from teachers.”

Ms Considine said that radical activism on teachers’ unions is distorting the culture and message being promoted in the country’s education system and although this development “blindsided” her, more and more people are becoming aware of the very specific ideological undertones.

“The teachers’ unions have just been absolutely taken over with the whole ‘Woke’ causes and the activists in them have kind of taken over,” she said. “Having said that, people really are waking up to what’s going on and the nonsense of the ideologies that are invading the education system.

“This totally blindsided me and I don’t think any of the teachers will realise it until they get to the chapter on Christmas this December and they’ll be like, ‘oh, where’s all the vocabulary around Christmas?’. That’s why I posted on Twitter to reach out to people.”

Catholic Secondary Schools Parents’ Association President Alan Whelan said that this sort of occurrence is “widespread” and “deeply engrained in the national curriculum”.

“This is widespread and the sad thing is, we are following some of the secular moves that took place across certain parts of Europe in recent years,” he said.

“It’s downgrading anything Christian and is just cutting out anything to do with the culture and certainly the traditions of families and it’s counterproductive.

“It’s something that’s deeply engrained in the national curriculum and parents who used to have a voice have really been marginalised completely. It invades everywhere and wherever it goes the Catholic representatives and academics are just frightened to speak out.”