Language purists driving teachers to distraction

REPORTS in the national media these days about national teachers who are troubled by the dreadful SCG examination have made my Irish blood boil.

I have been around for a very long time, and it would appear to me that this discriminatory exam has been around forever.

In our so-called modern, liberated and enlightened era, why should otherwise excellent and caring teachers be

worried and made feel insecure if their proficiency in a particular language is not as sharp as certain others on the staffroom floor?

Surely, this is where the use of specialist teachers comes in.

In this day and age, the teacher’s task in the classroom is so heavily burdened that he or she can do without the nit-picking and the pharisaic attitude in relation to points of Irish grammar.

While Irish was my favourite subject in the 1940s and ‘50s, is it surprising that so many today have turned away from the language?

The purists and the holier-than-thou brigade have killed it and now they are driving good teachers away.

These very teachers are the ones who are best placed to instil and incubate a love and a knowledge of our language and culture.

Jeremiah O’Sullivan,

2, Caroline Terrace,

Montenotte,

Cork.