welcome to the real world kids!It can suck ass at times.

The “real world”! As opposed to…?

Too much typing. Too little thinking. But that’s the “real world” for you…

I was thinking that, but I’m guessing the tear drop paper was photographed afterwards. You can bring the papers home afterwards I think

Yes! I brought my home and burned it

Give them projects to do with a research element to them. Use class as a discussion base, the teacher explaining the mechanics of the language and logic, rhetoric. The projects make up continual assessment.
Have them *think* about the subject rather than learn it.
I always find I remember more about the things I had to learn for myself than what I had drummed into me.
As my English teacher used to prance around shouting whenever someone handed him a generic answer
“you must THINK! I’m not here to train parrots!”

Critical thinking? Have you seen the leaving cert? Its an absolute joke.

In an ideal world everything would be learned and hence no surprises, but at no other time in your life will you be expected to sit such a large number of exams on such wide ranging subjects over a close number of days. There’s only so much info you can retain and so I think students are naturally going to be selective about what they focus on. It’s a risky game which pays off sometimes and in this case clearly didn’t for some. Maybe less subjects and a more indepth focus is the way forward? We were told to cover a wide range of subjects to keep our options open but this meant having to concentrate on some moreso than others in the event that you found them difficult, and potentially having to take chances on the others

Critical thinking is a little harder when you have 4 seperate texts ( novels , plays ) and upwards of 50 poems to study . Students are understandably nervous and the entire system encourages them to look at past papers and put more emphasis on certain poets /novelists . There’s no laziness here, just pragmatism . A little sympathy here and god forbid a little empathy would nt go a miss.

If there was know facebook,twitter,IM,smartphones etc etc kids of today will be spending more time with their books….and will find the exams easy..

@Ronan: Schools these days don’t teach critical thinking, they teach learning by heart. When you have been taught the wrong things then you’re totally screwed but it’s no fault of theirs.

School is a joke – nearly every one of my teachers spent a good while every day giving out about how it’s impossible to actually TEACH anything when they’re being forced to get through such huge amounts of stuff.

And to prove how obsessed with “learning things off” the leaving cert is – in accounting class we had to learn off all the different types of headers and formats – even though they are templates that no accountant ever needs to learn off. Maybe in case of a zombie apocalypse and we can’t find the templates anymore because everything’s been burned to the ground, then our knowledge of what header goes where will be of use.

@ Stephen Learning by heart is nothing new, in fact I have relatives educated in the 50s and 60s who can still recite full poems they learned in school when I can’t despite being educated in the 80s and 90s. They have a far better command of the Irish language to this day than I will ever have, and can remember dates, names and events from history that I wouldn’t have a hope of recalling, all from the way they were taught. I have a great Leaving Cert but find very little of what I learned by heart has stayed with me. Different methods of education no doubt exist today but I have always marvelled at how much has remained with them compared to my generation.

Sadly, Tokidoll, there’s more to life than reciting poems, saying things in Irish, and rattling off historical dates. Not necessarily bashing those things but that generation (and the current and future ones) would have been served better if they learned to challenge the dogmas and nonsense that have left the country where it is now…

They don’t teach critical thinking in our schools, that is known as the trivium method. It hasn’t been used for over a century. Very few teachers try to use this method (although some do incorporate elements of it, thankfully my English teacher was one). The learning by rote method of teaching comes from adaptations of the prussian method which was adopted in the 1800s.
This is the main reason you see people resorting to logical fallacies in debate and being hoodwinked by it in sales pitches / political rhetoric.
The Prussian method teaches you nothing more than to accept authority as truth rather than truth as authority.

Maybe the point of the Leaving Cert isn’t for everyone to get an A1 in everything? People still do, so clearly its possible (as is achieving seven A1s or more). Meanwhile, other students are categorised by their ability to manage under such a heavy burden of work. I seem to remember the LC dividing my class by their academic ability. Not to mention the frantic, panic-fuelled cramming skills stood me well in college.

Not to say that this is the way it should be of course. A friend of mine got an A1 in chemistry but couldn’t do the chemistry course he wanted because he did badly in Irish.

“Sadly, Tokidoll, there’s more to life than reciting poems, saying things in Irish, and rattling off historical dates.”

A fact I’m fully aware of Jonathan, I was merely responding to Stephen’s point, that schools these days teach learning by heart. The only point I wanted to make was that this doesn’t only happen today, and strangely enough, older generations remember more than we do from their curriculum. It was merely a comment on learning, it had nothing to do with the state of the country which we could really do without reading about in the comments field of every single news item on this site. It’s a bit of a sweeping statement to say past current and future generations could do with challenging the status quo.

(Sorry, that posted early)… plenty from each generation are doing their best to challenge the norms they disagree with, and remember, we have all grown up in very different times, it’s easier now to express your beliefs and opinions than it has ever been. School can only teach you so much, self discovery when you get out into the world is just as important in forming who you are, your political beliefs and leanings and what you agree and disagree with.

Eleen is right, there’s no time to teach as the timetable is so full. Most classes are 40mins long. 10mins to arrive & settle down and check a few students’ homework, 10mins to go over any queries arising from that. 10mins to set/explain new homework. That leaves 10mins to actually teach new material!!! Madness!!

@JayK
That’s kinda the point of the Prussian method. It’s supposed to categorise you for what is deemed to be professions that are on your “level”..
And you point out a huge flaw with our points system – someone with a flair for the subject may lose out on points due to a separate exam which holds little relevance.. So it’s even failing at its own stated purpose..

Judith . In not sure what you completed your doctorate in but I’d hazard a guess rote learning of relevant facts figures research etc played at least a small role in the final papers . Memorizing relevant information will always play a part in education at any level and personally it’s a quality I quite like in my political leaders .

You might want to have a read over basic grammar and spelling, Chris. I know it’s not really relevant “in the real world” but the word you’re looking for is “their”, not “there”.

Unless, god forbid, you want to try for a career in journalism, writing, teaching, lecturing, publishing, editing, or the arts and culture sector. English also encourages a very high standard of spelling and grammar use, not to mention better vocabulary. But we’d all hate to be educated and well read, right?

8 different poets, Hamlet essay, comparative essay and and an unseen poem…I was pushed for time

Are you aware that English is not the only exam? that students are required to do atleast 7 subjects so for me there was Hamlet, 3 texts 25 poems 5 poets, over 300 pages of chemistry and over 300 pages of biology, proving many many mathematical theorums, a large understanding of the maths course, many formulas and rules, a retarded amount of “art history” that most of it isnt even relevant to art, and I didnt even bother learning anything for music but to get an A you have leart about maybe 21 different topics to write and essay on filled with facts, 3 setworks with a knowledge of each section in the piece, the marking schemes terms for genres of music and large amount of knowledge on trad music then I had to skillfully play numerous songs on guitar, now nearly all of this information is a load of irrelevant crap that will barely benefit anyone in their lives, so now think of the scope of bullshit on the course and tell people again to cover everything, dont you even dare comment on my spelling and grammar, I am aware of the mistakes already and I am aware that you bothered to correct your own.

I dont even want to think about the compulsory Irish

I suppose that your excellent English teacher taught you about the appropriate use of the exclamation mark too!!!!

I agree with you for the other sections of paper two, like the single text and comparative study, a real answer put together in the exam has so much more life to it, but I have no shame in telling you that I memorised 3 4 page essays, one on each poet, and spat out one of them on the day. Poetry is one of the most redundant art forms English students have the misfortune to deal with, I’ve never met someone that reads poetry voluntarily, and the only people that seemed to write them were mentally unbalanced narcissists. I have the utmost respect for good writers, playwrights and journalists, but poets write for their own benefit, to deal with their own problems, and for us to read them and pretend to enjoy or care about them is nonsense.

I’d be nice if they gave you the poems they wanted you to reflect on, and an actually decent amount of time to work with. I remember fighting against the clock trying to come up with an interesting story idea – that kind of time pressure is the opposite of what you need when you want to be thoughtful and creative.

@ Brennan Meet someone who reads poetry for pleasure ;-)

@ Brendan that is, perhaps I’ll pen an ode to predictive texts…

@Tokidoll I stand corrected ;)

That’s all well and good, teaching appreciation for poetry etc. but most students have 7 or more subjects to do. I don’t think any poetry critic would be able to put together a 4 page essay on the poetry of Rich or Plath or Heaney in an hour when put on the spot. I personally think English should be a choice subject, writing is a talent just like playing a musical instrument. Not for Junior Cert but I think it should be for Leaving Cert. At the very least, it could be taught like religion is, one or two classes a week but not an exam subject except for those who wished to take it as an exam.

A poetry critic would most likely have a degree/masters and several years of experience in reading and interpreting poetry, so that’s really not an adequate comparison. As for making English a choice or not an exam subject, that’s the most inane idea I’ve ever heard. English gets students interested in literature, expands their vocabulary and their ability to read, write and interpret poetry, novels and drama. Without learning English in school, I doubt our country would have such a wonderful history of great writers. We’d also have rubbish vocabulary, talk in WordSpeak (as in 1984) and our reading abilities would be limited to Heat.

It’s better when students actually complain about how crap the school system and the exam system in this country is. You want them to shut up and take it instead? Nothing will ever change that way. I rather they spend their time giving out than learning off a load of sh*te.

I imagine the picture was taken outside the hall, after the exam. Yawn.

I would imagine it was tweet when they got home with the paper