Hanafin reduces lofty aims to mere rhetoric

IN response to the ideas of Mary Hanafin on standardised tests at primary level, it might help to reflect on the experiences of our colleagues in England.

They tell many worrying tales about the Standardised Assessment Tests (SATs). Many of these focus on how creativity is crushed in Key Stage 2 as children prepare to sit their SATs.

Exploration, dialogue and critical thinking are exchanged for the transmission of English and maths skills in an attempt to raise the scores of the tests for publication in league tables.

The introductory stages of the visionary primary school curriculum are not yet completed here and already the minister is reducing its lofty aims around valuing children’s creative response to mere rhetoric.

There is a danger that teachers here will follow the English example and start teaching the standardised tests, not the children.

Perhaps Bertrand Russell was right when he said: “We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.”

Máirín Glenn

Corclough East

Belmullet

Co Mayo.