I've discussed this subject before, but with the banking and financial crisis in Ireland today and with Mr Noonan denying he can stop paying millions to bankers, I've decided to revert to how we value people in this society. Thinking about last weeks Children's Referendum, I thought, what would a class of 7 to 10 year old pupils reply if they were asked how important they felt certain people in our society were in their lives? Funny to hear Pat Kenny on RTE this morning saying that the only people who the media did not talk to in the Children's Referendum were children. In a referendum proposing to give a voice to Ireland's children. Pat addressed that issue by getting a very revealing interview with a 16 year old boy who is a foster child. Back to the class room. So the experiment I would love some primary school teacher to conduct is as follows:
Distribute to the class a list of careers and discuss what those people who carry out various jobs do. Ask the children to carefully consider the value of each person's job as it would apply to them as a child or to people in general. Perhaps instead of valuing the person or their job in money terms the class should attach a colour to each person. Gold for the most valuable person to a dark colour for the least useful person. But money value could be used also. Here are my list of occupations:
Farmer
Judge
Prime Minister (Taoiseach)
Accountant
Lollipop man/lady
Architect
Secretary
Carpenter
Refuse Collector
Labourer
Doctor
Banker
Sewer Worker
Foster Parent
Teacher
Paediatric Nurse
Now teacher should ask the pupils to describe what they think each person does in their job and from one to ten what the most and least important jobs are. Also if there wasn't one of those people how much would it affect the community? For example what does a banker do? Answer: Count Money? What if the top banker wasn't there to count the money? Answer: he would get his workers to do it.
What does an Architect do? Answer: Draw houses. What does a Prime Minister do? He manages the country. And if he didn't turn up for work? His deputy would do it. What does a sewer worker do? Answer: A sewer worker makes sure that all the sewers which run beneath our cities, towns and villages work efficiently so that all our toilets flush properly. And if we didn't have sewer workers? Well all our toilets and sinks would overflow and flood our houses and streets and everyone would get diseases. We go down the list and compare the importance of each job. What does a Paediatric Nurse do? Save little babies lives. And a refuse collector? They empty our bins and keep our streets clean. What would happen if the refuse collectors and baby nurses didn't turn up for work? The refuse would cause disease and the babies would die.
So class, today I want you to write an essay about who are the most important (No, most Valuable people) in your lives. So, who would you give the gold star to. Or pay the highest wage to? And of the last six of the sixteen people you have studied in this test choose the person you feel contributes least to society and you want to stand in the corner till they do better.
I am very serious about this experiment. And after it has been carried out in primary schools we should ask adults to take the test. Starting with 166 TD's in Dail Eireann.
