Don't wanna sound like I am whineing.

errlloyd

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/stop-all-this-whining-and-move-on-pupils-1764779.html

Irish Independent wrote:

IS THERE a bigger bunch of pampered cry babies on the planet than Irish Leaving Cert students?

Every summer, they expect the entire country to creep around on tiptoe for weeks on end, keeping its voice down, just because they're sitting a few exams, whilst simultaneously clogging up the national media with their whiny gripes about this question or that paper, as if they were the only people in history who ever had to take a test.

What happened last week would be hilarious if it hadn't been taken so seriously. Basically, the second Leaving Cert English paper was handed out accidentally to students in Drogheda instead of the first, and the contents were then swiftly texted nationwide and posted on websites like Twitter for other students to see. The State Examinations Commission met, decided they'd have to scrap the paper, and bring back pupils to sit a revised version on Saturday. Cue red faces all round and a €1m bill to put the error right.

Instead of shrugging it off as one of those things, and getting on with it, many students reacted as if they'd been singled out for cruel and unusual treatment under the Geneva Convention, and their parents were soon ringing up radio stations to demand to know what would be done because their traumatised kids were falling apart at the news.

"Mistakes like this should not happen," declared the National Parents Council.

Did you catch that? Mistakes should not happen. The NPC wants mistakes abolished. Nice to see they've set themselves some sensible goals, eh?

Not to be outdone, Fine Gael's Brian Hayes then rowed in to declare that the whole thing was "outrageous".

So it's an outrage now, is it, when the wrong paper accidentally gets handed out?

You should be careful, Brian. If we use up all the good epithets for little mishaps like this, there'll be no words left in the thesaurus when something really important happens.

Parents ringing up the newsrooms and radio stations even demanded assurances that the tests would be marked easier to take account of the change in the schedule.

They'd have been better off at home, reassuring their children that everything was fine, stuff happens, that's life, just relax and do your best.

It's not as if the new paper was going to be that different from the one which had to be ditched at the last moment. Scrapping all the questions on Macbeth and replacing them with ones about the history of Japanese kabuki theatre in the shogun era: now that would've been a real bummer. But that was never going to happen.

There were simply going to be slightly different questions about a short and relatively straightforward play which students had spent the past two years studying. Either they knew this material or they didn't. Slightly altered wording in a question shouldn't throw any halfway competent student.

That's the real problem. Students are now so narrowly focused that they have to get the questions exactly the way they practised them in school,

or their little brains explode trying to process the minute differences. Instead of being adaptable and confident enough in what they've learned to respond organically to different angles, Leaving Cert students are programmed robots who can all spew out identikit answers if the right formulae are inputted but who suffer a fatal short circuit if there's the slightest alteration in the incoming data.

If they don't get the "dream paper" (aka the total doss paper), then it's teenage tantrums all round as they run to the waiting media to moan about how it's soooo unfair that they're expected to, like, know stuff.

Teachers have encouraged this atmosphere of perpetual angst which hangs over the Leaving Cert to fool parents into thinking that their job is much harder than it actually is. The Irish examination system isn't a minefield, it's a perfumed garden, and it's difficult to know how it would even be possible to mark the Junior and Leaving Certs any easier than they already are.

There's practically a system in place which makes it impossible to fail unless you replace every answer with some nice pictures of kittens done in crayon -- and even then you'd probably get at least a Pass for artistic effort.

Millions of children around the world come through much tougher education systems than the one enjoyed by Irish students without getting their knickers in a twist every time they're asked to put pen to paper. Just ask any pupils who've come to Ireland from overseas -- the Far East in particular -- if they find what they have to put up with here more challenging than the courses back home. I've done it. They just laugh.

Irish teenagers should count themselves fortunate to be in a system which mollycoddles them every step of the way, rather than playing hard-done-by every summer like spotty, hormonal drama queens.

Schools can teach you many things, but a sense of proportion is something you have to work out for yourself. Last week's exam blunder was as good a place to start as any. Nobody died. One Leaving Cert paper was delayed for a few days by a silly mistake. That's all. Get over it. Forget about it. Move on.

Honestly, what the hell is she talking about. I realise we made a fuss, but screw it, what else were they going to report about, Bird flu, or the Brazilian Navy's inability to identify what comes from a plane and what is an Inflatable Buoy.

She calls us "small brained" here as-well. I would say her job is very difficult, she write opinion pieces, so basically she just sits there and says what she wants, and honestly most of the crew over at Leaving-cert.net do a better job. (Then again they seem to be getting into a better paper more and more)

Midway through she claims that the quote "mistakes likes this shouldn't be made" means "mistakes shouldn't be made". Obviously her inability to read is clear. Let me give you a quick example, USA accidentally nuke China. Cowen says "mistakes like this shouldn't be made" and **** face over at the independent says "Oh Brian Cowen wants to wipe out mistakes". No he doesn't you illogical fool, he wants extremely stupid mistakes to be erased.



This might get deleted for being off topic, or whatever. Sorry, I am mad.

zodac

You know, now that the whole English P2 thing is over and done with, and even though I completely disagree with her, it was a nice article to read. Really cheered me up in the middle of studying for Maths 2moro:D

Risteard

The only thing more 'whiny' than whining is whining about someone whining.

I like to say whining.

Beau x1

This article sounded exactly like something a leaving cert student would write in an English P1 composition paper.

Indo wrote:

If they don't get the "dream paper" (aka the total doss paper), then it's teenage tantrums all round as they run to the waiting media to moan about how it's soooo unfair that they're expected to, like, know stuff.

I laughed, that is true to be fair.

vard

So, what's your point?

star-pants

Ranting & Raving ftw