The Fire i' the Flint

Mary Shine Thompson, Ed. Four Courts Press. 2009. ISBN 978-1-84682-073-1

Subtitle: Essays on the Creative Imagination. Essays based on the Seamus Heaney Lectures, 3rd Series.

A gift from Susan McKenna-Lawlor, one of the contributors. Beautifully-produced, with several brilliant essays. Perspectives from practitioners on creativity in poetry, painting, music, scientific work, and fiction, and on its place in education. Heaney on Kavanagh, a visual essay by Bridget Riley,
Peter Hamel on musical improvisation, Alan Titley on the writer's visceral relationship with words, Susan on our evolving understanding of the cosmos.
The essays on education (Seymour Papert, Kieran Egan, Jones Irwin, and others) present radical critiques of current practice.
In Titley's essay, even the prose is poetic. I disagree with him about the importance of the content, as opposed to the words, in literature, but I sympathise, too. In fact, I do admit the value of some work that lacks meaning, such as Jabberwocky and Finnegan's Wake. His discussion ranges over a considerable set of writers and tongues, and the quotations and discussion from various greats were stimulating. In particular, he stimulated me to revisit Lorca and to dig deeper in the Gaelic poets. Curious, coming upon his enthusiastic endorsement of Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabhán so soon after reading Keating.
I particularly liked Egan's essay, entitled Imagination and Education, emphasizing the central importance of stimulating the child's imagination, and the rôle of story. This is good:

The trouble with our lives is that they don't have any clear meaning, except in so far as we can fit them into stories.

I also liked:

My uncle has a dog with no legs. I asked, 'What do you call him?' He said, 'It doesn't matter. He won't come.'

They've reduced our online journal access

Spent a little time on politics, and
sent out this letter to the editor today:

Two days ago I listened to Dr. Craig Barrett addressing the Academy and 600 of the country's leading figures, and making the point that we face a crisis much more serious than the transient fiscal problems that are in the news. Over the medium to long term, we cannot continue to enjoy our present levels of prosperity and comfort, unless we lift our performance on three key fronts from mediocre to excellent. The first two of these (the slogans are "smart people"
and "smart ideas")
involve Mathematics and Science. We need more people studying these to the highest level, we need at least 2000 more qualified Mathematics teachers,
and we need world-class scientific research.

At the same time, the community of mathematical researchers was just trying to come to terms with an action that threatens to set them back twenty years. As and from the 31st of January, we have lost online access through IReL
(the Irish Research e-Library)
to many of the main journals in our field. The situation is unclear, still. In some cases, there may be other ways to access the journal. But since the start of the month, I keep hitting screens that demand payment, when I go to check an article. Jobs that should be finished are hanging, while I try to find a work-around. To explain the realities, the research paper I am currently drafting with my collaborator in Bern needs results, so far, from 23 earlier papers, and counting. Since we use them, we have to check them: get the exact statements,
and make sure the proofs are correct. In January, I could see these papers from my desktop. Now I'm asked for cash, or invited to subscribe. Twenty papers, on a pay-per-view basis, would set me back about 500 euro. This puts me back where I was in the bad old days.

In recent years we have managed to attract (and attract back)
significant mathematical talent from overseas,
largely due to the improved research environment produced by government action, through SFI and the HEA. These people are not going to
tolerate a return to the kind of research conditions in which a
handful of patriots kept the flame alive in the old days. They will
go elsewhere, to continue the work they prioritize
in a supportive environment.

A setback at the level of key university researchers is going to damage the entire educational
system: these people are also training young
researchers, and future maths teachers at all levels, they are training people in other scientific and technical fields, and they contribute expertise and advice to ensure that our system of maths education is in touch with global developments. For instance, last
Tuesday I listened to the Minister for Education and Science telling
a conference hosted by the Academy and organized by Engineers Ireland
that he was pinning his hopes on Project Maths, in order to lift
our performance in Maths. Project Maths involves many inputs, and
one important one (namely the vetting of technical content
for correctness) is assisted, on a pro-bono basis, by university academics.
The Minister also said that it was "completely unacceptable" that
one-third of our secondary maths teachers are inadequately-trained.
The cure is, obviously, to increase the output of maths graduates.
But this is not going to happen if we wipe out the apex of the pyramid.
People are already disillusioned by increased teaching loads due
to a staffing freeze, and pay cuts of up to 25 percent. Hitting
their ability to use the time left for research as productively
as possible could be the last straw.

Our colleagues in the Physical Sciences are also hit by this change
to IReL, although the crieria used by the librarians seem to have
had a differential impact, and not hit them so hard. Nevertheless,
firm support for growth in the areas of Physics and Chemistry is
absolutely essential. These vital subjects are in catastrophic decline
in the schools.

If there is any kind of joined-up plan for this country, the IRel
resources for Maths, Physics and Chemistry
must be restored at once and in full.