Teacher unions and exams - what’s the problem?

LawBoy2018

Pringles123 wrote: »

You said
"I don't blame teachers for the disruption caused by the pandemic. I blame them for demanding that a traditional LC goes ahead, despite the fact that it's the middle of February and current LC students have missed months of class time."

What exactly is it you want. Do you want sole predictive grades? Sole leaving cert? Or both?

If the LC is to go ahead, it should be pushed out to middle/late summer with students offered the opportunity to reclaim some of the class time lost due to the pandemic.

If this cannot be done, students from underprivileged areas should not be expected to sit an exam in the traditional manner without having been afforded a fair chance to compete with students from the more affluent areas who have had less teething problems associated with online learning.

If the LC is to go ahead, the fallout re reduced class time needs to be quantified and offset via adequate measures to ensure that students from disadvantaged areas are not thrown to the dogs.

Pringles123

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

If the LC is to go ahead, it should be pushed out to middle/late summer with students offered the opportunity to reclaim some of the class time lost due to the pandemic.

If this cannot be done, students from underprivileged areas should not be expected to sit an exam in the traditional manner without having been afforded a fair chance to compete with students from the more affluent areas who have had less teething problems associated with online learning.

If the LC is to go ahead, the fallout re reduced class time needs to be quantified and offset via adequate measures to ensure that students from disadvantaged areas are not thrown to the dogs.

Well fair enough that's what you think. I dont disagree with you in the difficulties underprivileged areas are having.
In regards to everything else lovely ideas but the department of education couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. I dont even want to think about how they would try determine who is disadvantaged and not.

Str8outtaWuhan

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

If the LC is to go ahead, it should be pushed out to middle/late summer with students offered the opportunity to reclaim some of the class time lost due to the pandemic.

If this cannot be done, students from underprivileged areas should not be expected to sit an exam in the traditional manner without having been afforded a fair chance to compete with students from the more affluent areas who have had less teething problems associated with online learning.

If the LC is to go ahead, the fallout re reduced class time needs to be quantified and offset via adequate measures to ensure that students from disadvantaged areas are not thrown to the dogs.

"Four legs good, two legs bad". No amount of extra time /good teachers will compensate for a toxic home environment. Many of the kids in the former are stuck in an unbreakable cycle. Those in the latter are the children/grandchildren of those who managed to escape that cycle.

Socially engineering equality has never worked , ever. It actually leads to more inequity.

Pringles123

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

If the LC is to go ahead, it should be pushed out to middle/late summer with students offered the opportunity to reclaim some of the class time lost due to the pandemic.

If this cannot be done, students from underprivileged areas should not be expected to sit an exam in the traditional manner without having been afforded a fair chance to compete with students from the more affluent areas who have had less teething problems associated with online learning.

If the LC is to go ahead, the fallout re reduced class time needs to be quantified and offset via adequate measures to ensure that students from disadvantaged areas are not thrown to the dogs.

Just as one last point im going to make. I dont think many leaving certs themselves want to see it pushed out over summer. Let alone removing their well needed break after a difficult year, it has knock on problems with when college would start and how those semesters would play out.

markodaly

Anyone catch the TUI throw the ASTI under the bus on Katie Hannon RTE radio yesterday?

LawBoy2018

Pringles123 wrote: »

Just as one last point im going to make. I dont think many leaving certs themselves want to see it pushed out over summer. Let alone removing their well needed break after a difficult year, it has knock on problems with when college would start and how those semesters would play out.

So all of a sudden teachers seem to care about about the wellbeing of students when their precious 3 month summer holidays are at risk.. gotcha

Where was this concern back in September when measures should have been put in place in anticipation of this exact problem?

Pringles123

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

So all of a sudden teachers seem to care about about the wellbeing of students when their precious 3 month summer holidays are at risk.. gotcha

Where was this concern back in September when measures should have been put in place in anticipation of this exact problem?

You don't know many teachers do you?
I think your final question should be directed to the department of education. Thats what they're paid to do.

LawBoy2018

Pringles123 wrote: »

You don't know many teachers do you?
I think your final question should be directed to the department of education. Thats what they're paid to do.

Of course the DoE should have been more proactive, but schools could have easily examined their students more frequently/comprehensively from September-December in anticipation of the possibility of predicted grades.

History Queen

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

Of course the DoE should have been more proactive, but schools could have easily examined their students more frequently/comprehensively from September-December in anticipation of the possibility of predicted grades.

Which many did. The ISSU were complaining about it before Christmas.

Pringles123

History Queen wrote: »

Which many did. The ISSU were complaining about it before Christmas.

And let's not forget health advice by doing so. Collecting and distributing scripts..having to isolate scripts for 3 days etc.

jimmytwotimes 2013

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

Of course the DoE should have been more proactive, but schools could have easily examined their students more frequently/comprehensively from September-December in anticipation of the possibility of predicted grades.

Many did increase exams given, but within reason

Class tests don't always reflect state exam performance

Students would be stressed to the max with constant testing across the board

Course content still has to be covered which won't happen if you're giving tests all the time

wirelessdude01

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

Of course the DoE should have been more proactive, but schools could have easily examined their students more frequently/comprehensively from September-December in anticipation of the possibility of predicted grades.

Did you miss the ISSU giving out back in November about how the students were all so stressed due to the amount of assessment that was going on?

JPF82

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

Of course the DoE should have been more proactive, but schools could have easily examined their students more frequently/comprehensively from September-December in anticipation of the possibility of predicted grades.

Imagine how mentally burnt out students would be from regular tests in 7 subjects knowing that the results would be used for predicted grades? Instead of one pressure point in June, you would have 4 months of it up to Christmas alone. Students would rightly speak out against that. Tests are used for different purposes too. Most of my class tests are formative as I want it to aid learning.

meeeeh

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Did you miss the ISSU giving out back in November about how the students were all so stressed due to the amount of assessment that was going on?

That's fine but if you think ISSU should be listened in November then what changed that they should not be listened now?

markodaly

I think what this debacle reveals is how stale, old and outdated much of Irish education is. And I am talking about the whole system. There are good bits to it, but also bad.

The LC is not much more than an exercise of rote learning and the ability to transfer information from one's brain onto a piece of paper as fast as possible. Such skills are mostly redundant in today's age.

Unions and teachers are not exactly at the cutting edge of change, nor do they have any clue on implementing change, they are after all teachers, they teach not much else. Any bit of reform advocated by any Minister of Education for the past 30 years has been fought tooth and nail. They really need to more open-minded.

The Dept of Education needs a shake up as well and I would extend that to most departments in Ireland, we are poorly led by our Civil Service as as whole. Too slow, too much closing of the wagons, not enough accountability. I hope post covid we get the CS we deserve. One thing for sure, we need a drastic look at digitising learning and continuous assessments, with the odd exams thrown in.

I think one of the biggest changes as a society we should make is put more emphasis on early childhood teaching, especially the 2-5 mark. In Finland, the gold star for every teacher in Ireland and Union rep, they don't start formal school until they are 7, while we start at 4 or 5?
Why? Because they have a very good early childcare system that takes young children under their wing from a very age.

In Ireland, we see early childcare education as merely glorified babysitting while 'real' school starts at 5.... such an outdated archaic way of thinking unfortunately supported by many teachers if you believe.
In Ireland, we should create proper 'school's for the 2-7-year-olds and educate them the way they do in Scandinavia, under the wing of the Dept. of Education and funded out of that Department.

History Queen

meeeeh wrote: »

That's fine but if you think ISSU should be listened in November then what changed that they should not be listened now?

I think ISSU should be listened to about the issues affecting students and how and why these issues are causing concern. They should be consulted about the solution and how they see it affecting their members, not allowed dictate it (not saying they are dictating here I'm awaiting full details and decision). They are not, and should not be expected to be, experts in education.

wirelessdude01

History Queen wrote: »

I think ISSU should be listened to about the issues affecting students and how and why these issues are causing concern. They should be consulted about the solution and how they see it affecting their members, not allowed dictate it (not saying they are dictating here I'm awaiting full details and decision). They are not, and should not be expected to be, experts in education.

Norma seems to have cosied up to the ISSU.

boombang

Not particularly on topic, but for those in the know, how would they rate RTE's Ingrid Miley's coverage of this issue regarding balance?

wirelessdude01

boombang wrote: »

Not particularly on topic, but for those in the know, how would they rate RTE's Ingrid Miley's coverage of this issue regarding balance?

Has she been reporting on it? Haven't noticed her input really. Emma O'Kelly however is generally pretty balanced.

meeeeh

History Queen wrote: »

I think ISSU should be listened to about the issues affecting students and how and why these issues are causing concern. They should be consulted about the solution and how they see it affecting their members, not allowed dictate it (not saying they are dictating here I'm awaiting full details and decision). They are not, and should not be expected to be, experts in education.

And I agree but then you can't use their concern as a sole reason not to do tests before. There might be valid reasons why schools don't tests students but don't use ISSU as an excuse.

You can't say in November we can't test we have to listen to the students and in February pull a stunt because students are listened to too much.

History Queen

meeeeh wrote: »

And I agree but then you can't use their concern as a sole reason not to do tests before. There might be valid reasons why schools don't tests students but don't use ISSU as an excuse.

Schools (well the ones I'm aware of) didn't adjust their testing system because of this unless they actually had cases of individual teachers or groups of teachers over-assessing. What I was alluding to is the fact that across the media and social media the voice of the students in terms of what should or should not happen in terms of assessment is much louder than that of the teachers. Students largely don't know the difference between formative and summative assessment (why would they) and therefore are not best placed to comment on how much useful data there is for calculated grades, whether teachers have been preparing for such an eventuality or indeed what form of assessment would be fairest in terms of the Leaving Certificate.

Str8outtaWuhan

markodaly wrote: »

I think what this debacle reveals is how stale, old and outdated much of Irish education is. And I am talking about the whole system. There are good bits to it, but also bad.

The LC is not much more than an exercise of rote learning and the ability to transfer information from one's brain onto a piece of paper as fast as possible. Such skills are mostly redundant in today's age.

Unions and teachers are not exactly at the cutting edge of change, nor do they have any clue on implementing change, they are after all teachers, they teach not much else. Any bit of reform advocated by any Minister of Education for the past 30 years has been fought tooth and nail. They really need to more open-minded.

The Dept of Education needs a shake up as well and I would extend that to most departments in Ireland, we are poorly led by our Civil Service as as whole. Too slow, too much closing of the wagons, not enough accountability. I hope post covid we get the CS we deserve. One thing for sure, we need a drastic look at digitising learning and continuous assessments, with the odd exams thrown in.

I think one of the biggest changes as a society we should make is put more emphasis on early childhood teaching, especially the 2-5 mark. In Finland, the gold star for every teacher in Ireland and Union rep, they don't start formal school until they are 7, while we start at 4 or 5?
Why? Because they have a very good early childcare system that takes young children under their wing from a very age.

In Ireland, we see early childcare education as merely glorified babysitting while 'real' school starts at 5.... such an outdated archaic way of thinking unfortunately supported by many teachers if you believe.
In Ireland, we should create proper 'school's for the 2-7-year-olds and educate them the way they do in Scandinavia, under the wing of the Dept. of Education and funded out of that Department.

aka State indoctrination. That is why we have a provision in our constitution (Parents are the primary educators
...) that prevents the state from educating our kids in ways we don't agree.

Under your proposal if a parent didn't agree with let us say that biological sex is a choice they couldn't remove their child from school when that line is peddled, similarly they couldn't remove their child from religious education if they was peddled by a gov.

Donald Trump

markodaly wrote: »

I think what this debacle reveals is how stale, old and outdated much of Irish education is. And I am talking about the whole system. There are good bits to it, but also bad.

The LC is not much more than an exercise of rote learning and the ability to transfer information from one's brain onto a piece of paper as fast as possible. Such skills are mostly redundant in today's age.

Unions and teachers are not exactly at the cutting edge of change, nor do they have any clue on implementing change, they are after all teachers, they teach not much else. Any bit of reform advocated by any Minister of Education for the past 30 years has been fought tooth and nail. They really need to more open-minded.

The Dept of Education needs a shake up as well and I would extend that to most departments in Ireland, we are poorly led by our Civil Service as as whole. Too slow, too much closing of the wagons, not enough accountability. I hope post covid we get the CS we deserve. One thing for sure, we need a drastic look at digitising learning and continuous assessments, with the odd exams thrown in.

I think one of the biggest changes as a society we should make is put more emphasis on early childhood teaching, especially the 2-5 mark. In Finland, the gold star for every teacher in Ireland and Union rep, they don't start formal school until they are 7, while we start at 4 or 5?
Why? Because they have a very good early childcare system that takes young children under their wing from a very age.

In Ireland, we see early childcare education as merely glorified babysitting while 'real' school starts at 5.... such an outdated archaic way of thinking unfortunately supported by many teachers if you believe.
In Ireland, we should create proper 'school's for the 2-7-year-olds and educate them the way they do in Scandinavia, under the wing of the Dept. of Education and funded out of that Department.

You always see this crap coming up. Blah blah rote learning.


If you don't want to go down that route, there are, and always have been, other options. The technical secondary schools were set up decades ago as more vocational training. You can do the Leaving Cert Applied now if you want.



There is no benefit in trying to change an optional system just because you yourself don't like it. You don't need to do it. Go down a different track if you want.



When I was in secondary, you would hear the same opinions.......yet you'll find that the ones who "would have done well except for the system", by and large, didn't do fuck all outside of it when they left. Of course there are a few who own their own businesses now and are doing well, but by and large it is a reasonable indication of basic ability. LC is only a mickey-mouse step along the way for most people. Not when you are doing it of course, but after you go on to complete other things. It's mainly important as a filter for third level entry nowadays. Once you hit 23 it is irrelevant anyway as a hard barrier as you can enter as a mature student then.



When you go to university then there was a step up and there were still some students who outshone each other in the exams. Rote learning again for the most part, but again, a high correlation between those who finish at the top of the class and those later flying high in their respective fields.



Smart people will do well at exams because they just understand the material and often don't really have to remember it. It is more difficult for those who can't understand something to remember it. If you understand it, you often don't have to remember much of it. If you don't understand it to begin with, you might see it as learning a nonsensical sequence of steps.



You find yourself struggling to write out the proof of a theorem, line after line of gibberish (in your mind). And you see some other student fly through it no bother. You think they are just better at rote learning - when in reality the didn't really have to learn much. Maybe they just have to remember the basic idea of the proof.

LawBoy2018

Donald Trump wrote: »

You always see this crap coming up. Blah blah rote learning.


If you don't want to go down that route, there are, and always have been, other options. The technical secondary schools were set up decades ago as more vocational training. You can do the Leaving Cert Applied now if you want.



There is no benefit in trying to change an optional system just because you yourself don't like it. You don't need to do it. Go down a different track if you want.



When I was in secondary, you would hear the same opinions.......yet you'll find that the ones who "would have done well except for the system", by and large, didn't do fuck all outside of it when they left. Of course there are a few who own their own businesses now and are doing well, but by and large it is a reasonable indication of basic ability. LC is only a mickey-mouse step along the way for most people. Not when you are doing it of course, but after you go on to complete other things. It's mainly important as a filter for third level entry nowadays. Once you hit 23 it is irrelevant anyway as a hard barrier as you can enter as a mature student then.



When you go to university then there was a step up and there were still some students who outshone each other in the exams. Rote learning again for the most part, but again, a high correlation between those who finish at the top of the class and those later flying high in their respective fields.



Smart people will do well at exams because they just understand the material and often don't really have to remember it. It is more difficult for those who can't understand something to remember it. If you understand it, you often don't have to remember much of it. If you don't understand it to begin with, you might see it as learning a nonsensical sequence of steps.



You find yourself struggling to write out the proof of a theorem, line after line of gibberish (in your mind). And you see some other student fly through it no bother. You think they are just better at rote learning - when in reality the didn't really have to learn much. Maybe they just have to remember the basic idea of the proof.

I did quite badly in the LC, I'm now a trainee solicitor in a top 5 law firm. My brother repeated the LC and got circa 410 points, he's now an audit trainee in a big 4 accounting firm.

If you you've yet to realise that the LC is nothing but a glorified memory test, you're either in the wrong profession or you haven't been paying attention.

Donald Trump

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

I did quite badly in the LC, I'm now a trainee solicitor in a top 5 law firm. My brother repeated the LC and got circa 410 points, he's now an audit trainee in a big 4 accounting firm.

If you you've yet to realise that the LC is nothing but a glorified memory test, you're either in the wrong profession or you haven't been paying attention.

How do you get on in your solicitor exams if you don't need to remember things? Surely law would be one of the "worst" subjects for needing rote learned facts?

At least in Science etc. you can derive things. In Law, surely you are often arguing based on precedents etc? You need to remember and quote ABC vs. State 1960 etc?


If people don't do well in the LC, they can still go on to do other things. Often people mature and buckle down later. I also alluded to that in my post about mature students.


Of course there is the alternate route into some of the more traditional professions through old boys networks and parents. But not everyone has those...............

LawBoy2018

Donald Trump wrote: »

How do you get on in your solicitor exams if you don't need to remember things?




Of course there is the alternate route into some of the more traditional professions through old boys networks and parents. But not everyone has those...............

I can 'remember things' but I've never been able to rhyme off pre-learned essays, so I struggled with history, Irish, Spanish and even English funnily enough, particularly when it came to memorising poems and the likes.

It took me a few years to regain my confidence after achieving less than stellar grades in the LC, despite the fact that I would now be seen objectively as 'smart' simply by virtue of the career I chose.

The LC suits certain students very well, but others not so much.

Donald Trump

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

I can 'remember things' but I've never been able to rhyme off pre-learned essays, so I struggled with history, Irish, Spanish and even English funnily enough, particularly when it came to memorising poems and the likes.

It took me a few years to regain my confidence after achieving less than stellar grades in the LC, despite the fact that I would now be seen objectively as 'smart' simply by virtue of the career I chose.

The LC suits certain students very well, but others not so much.

I'm honestly not picking on you, but did you have any contacts to get you the trainee role? Or did you just get picked up in a virtually anonymous milk-round kind of thing? Did you go on to study law in university? If you can't remember "history" then surely it will be difficult to regurgitate case law in your solicitor exams? Maybe it depends on what you are interested in. I didn't do history for my Leaving but I was actually considering doing it on the side on my own at the time because I was interested in the subject and found it easy to remember because of that. I'd have to do a lot more work to remember case particulars. I might remember the general ideas but linking those back to the specific cases would be pain in the hole. Same for laws. I might remember the idea, and be correct, but is it SI 123 (2004) section x or SI 321 (2005) section y?



No knocking your brother either - fair play to him for repeating, but repeating wouldn't be seen as an option for a lot of students/families. One of the biggest determinants of success in the educational sense is based on home situation and environment. If a kid grows up in an environment where third level is almost expected since they are young, then they are more likely to end up there. You see the grinds farms, the like of the Institute, where a lot of kids with wealthy parents get sent to get their points up to get into university.


Personally I believe that almost anyone can do more or less anything if they really want to


Personally, I never "pre-learned" anything for a language exam. I used to just go in and write something down

Treppen

doc22 wrote: »

Teachers want predicted grades and LC exam

Good man you're catching on.

Treppen

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

I did quite badly in the LC, I'm now a trainee solicitor in a top 5 law firm. My brother repeated the LC and got circa 410 points, he's now an audit trainee in a big 4 accounting firm.

If you you've yet to realise that the LC is nothing but a glorified memory test, you're either in the wrong profession or you haven't been paying attention.

If you think the LC is just a glorified memory test then you have little experience of teaching it.

I'd laugh if you came in and told my students all they have to do is "memorise stuff".

You could open a grind school to rival the Institute with this revolutionary method.

"Not getting those H1s?
What you need is to memorise more stuff.
Come to my school and I'll give you extra stuff to memorise."

Lol

LawBoy2018

Treppen wrote: »

If you think the LC is just a glorified memory test then you have little experience of teaching it.

I'd laugh if you came in and told my students all they have to do is "memorise stuff".

You could open a grind school to rival the Institute with this revolutionary method.

"Not getting those H1s?
What you need is to memorise more stuff.
Come to my school and I'll give you extra stuff to memorise."

Lol

Why would I need to teach it? I've sat the exams?

Don't just take my word for it: https://www.dcu.ie/news/news/2018/08/leaving-cert-students-rely-on-rote-learning-and-memory-recall-to-get-through