Boston to Limerick: Teaching From Across the Sea

I've been at my placement now for three weeks and I have already noticed many similarities and differences within the school from my pre-practicum experience at BC and my own experience as a student in elementary school.

Similarities:
Small group work/ Co-teaching- The school is starting to use more small group work and co-teaching in their lessons.  This method of teaching is relatively new to the school, but it offers more flexibility for students to get the individualized instruction according to their ability level.  

Assessment- Students are given assessments at the beginning of the year to test their knowledge of literacy, maths, and other subjects.  This assessment then determines their group for instruction during those subjects.  Students go to different classrooms during those blocks according to their ability level group and assessed continually during the block by each teacher.

Differences:
Discipline- Last week, I was talking to one of students during group work and they had mentioned that some of his peers needed to do "lines."  When I asked him about what they were, he said that they are when the teacher has the student copy the same line over and over again on the board as punishment.  I thought this was really old-fashioned and I had never heard of a teacher in the US doing the same type of punishment on students today, but when I told another teacher about it, she said that it's more common for teachers to be stricter during the beginning of the school year so that they don't have to continue disciplining students all throughout the rest of the year.

Subjects- Although most of the subjects are the same like literacy, maths, etc.  There are two subjects that I are unique to schools in Ireland, most of which are also Catholic: Irish and Religion.  I thought it was interesting considering this is the equivalent of a public school that the students would have Catholic religion classes because in the US, there is a more distinct separation between church and state.  It would be expected if one were to attend a privately funded school, but most schools in Ireland are religiously affiliated, even if they are public.  Irish is a mandatory subject in Ireland, although I've found that most people forget their Irish after secondary school because no one uses Irish in daily living.