Ease off on Leaving Cert students
While the Leaving Cert is a big event, ultimately it’s just another step along the journey of life. I am now 48 years old and have completed three Leaving Certs in my time.
I did the first when I was 17 years old and, to be honest, it didn’t mean very much to me at the time. I completed the other two as a mature student because I decided to go to college. I might never have succeeded in my return to education had it not been for the experience of completing that first Leaving Cert, when I was 17. Like I said, it was just one step on the way to my eventual success, when I graduated from UCC, at the age of 28. I later completed two post-graduate diplomas, including a teaching qualification, and have been teaching for the past 12 years, as well as doing an interesting variety of other skilled work.
What all this has taught me is that education is (or should be) all about creating options and that life is a serious of choices and challenges. Life also involves a lot of ‘trial and error’ and there is nothing wrong with that. Every experience in life (including the exam process) has the potential to educate us and you can never have too much education, whatever its source.
Everybody who is doing the Leaving Cert should be allowed to get on with it, without all this annual fuss in the media. My experience has also taught me that “stress” (e.g. “exam” stress) is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. the more we talk about stress, the more we are likely to experience it.
Students, parents and the media need to take a balanced and proportional approach to the Leaving Cert. There is education all around us; it’s up to us to take it all in. Ultimately, we are all educators and we all influence those around us. So please, let the students get on with it, without all this annual media cackle.
White St
Cork
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