Programme 291, Purpose and Control in Education; Reading/Writing Workshops (10-5-17)

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

On this week's programme I interview three members of the Mulcahy family who are originally from Cork but who all work as education professors in the United States. The father, Donal G. Mulcahy, and daughter, Cara Mulcahy both work in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Central Connecticut State University and Cara's brother, Donal E. Mulcahy is a professor and Director of Elementary Education in the Department of Education at Wake Forest University. They each addressed the 2017 annual confernece of the Education Studies Association of Ireland, of which Donal G. was a founding member.

Among the points raised on the programme are:

• The purpose of Education
• Control of education and the role of teachers, policymakers, administrators, foundations and corporations
• The workshop approach to teaching reading and writing 18’26” Authors referred to include Lucy Calkins, author of The Art of Teaching Writing; Linda Rief, author of Seeking Diversity: Language Arts with Adolescents; and Nancy Atwell, author of In the Middle.
• Why policymakers pay insufficient heed to education research.