The Secret Teacher: Pandemic has changed education system for the better

Covid-19 has forced educators to rethink the 'Darwinian' exam system, and that should benefit students.

COVID-19 is cruel, but  it has done us some favours in education. 

If you look at Covid-19 through a peephole, in a certain light, you might even say it’s on our students' side.

In my school, from this singular perspective, Covid-19 arrived like a friendly blue genie, carrying a lovely, shiny lamp. 

And in the last few months, we've been granted three wishes.

Wish One

No Junior Cert

I love teaching the Junior Cycle. Educators have done a wonderful job in overhauling a dated curriculum. We study film; we're even encouraged to make our own! As a poet,  I am forever grateful that there’s no prescribed material in poetry. 

I can study Bob Dylan one week, and Sylvia Plath the next. I can relate my content to the real world; beyond the classroom. The days of pulling out the same, tattered text every September are far behind us. Nothing is predictable and every year looks and feels different; fresh. 

So long as I cover a broad range of themes and ideas, I have free rein. The change from the Junior Cert to the Junior Cycle acknowledges that learning isn’t linear; it's a process, without a start or finish.

And yet, at the end of this innovative time, we cut all creative threads with an axe by demanding that  students sit standardised exams. 

Having spent three years equipping students with the skills to stay well and to work with others, we tell them to write quietly in a room for hours on end. 

Where we once invited inquiry and curiosity, we run summative exams with very fixed marking schemes. Certainly, in English, the pace and tone of the exam seem at odds with our broader curriculum.

Why do we bother? Because we want to prepare children for the Leaving Cert, two or three years later? These two experiences are nothing alike.

This year, the Junior Cert never happened. And we’re all still here. We’re all OK. Children are moving naturally from this cycle into  transition year,  a seamless progression without the brain-boil of numerous exams. It only took a pandemic.

Wish Two

Leaving Cert revamp

The Leaving Cert and the CAO points system are unashamedly Darwinian. It’s a supply-and-demand calculation that judges children on their relative performance in a single, high-stakes exam. In a general sense, it needs to be scrapped, but this year’s class, in a specific sense, have at least escaped its shadow.

Teachers are being trusted. Schools have given a rank order of their students, which will be placed on a line, a curve, in keeping with previous years. This makes sense. It will mean that 21% of marks will be altered, but I can understand the necessity to shift the curve. 

I know my students well and I can order them easily, in terms of their ability. But I’ve never been a marker in this country, so I can’t be certain of my understanding of national averages. This is what the standardisation process will do. It will plot my 'rank' on a national graph.

This is something I welcome hugely and, contrary to our unions, I feel passionately that it is the way of the future. If we trust and respect teachers, we should trust them to assess their students at the end of a two-year period of learning.

The major victory came when Norma Foley, the education minister, publicly acknowledged that our  system perpetuates the status quo. She is no longer using the historical data of schools to calculate grades, because she knows, like anyone interested in education, that the data doesn’t move. 

If historical data were part of the algorithm, it would disadvantage the already disadvantaged. Fair play to Ms  Foley for recognising this flaw in a very public way. But if we go back to the old way of doing things, don’t we return to an inherently unfair system? Are we OK with that?

I hope not. Calculated grades seem fairer. That said, writing this article before the results come out feels like launching a tiny little kite into a thunderstorm. Watch this space.

Wish 3

More room

I’ve never been happier to work in my school. Honestly. I hate that I can’t move around the room, that I can’t get stuck into a good chat with a child, my head in their book, my hand on their chair. I hate the distances between us, but it does have a flipside.

We have space! We finally have space! Because of restrictions, we’ve been given more rooms. Practical classes have been split into smaller groups and it all feels and looks so much more manageable than before. 

There’s an air of calm and camaraderie in the room. And the fears I had around pair work were unfounded. Because there are fewer  children in the room, they can hear each other across the 1m stretch, no problem. It all works.

These are the three wishes being granted to teachers and students across the country.

It has taken a pandemic to change how the Department of Education functions. Covid-19 has forced us to scrutinise injustices and to put the students’ experiences first.

Thank you, Covid-19. But I’m ready to put you back in your lamp now, lodging you for ever on the sandy floor of a dark cave, far, far away…