Staff only: Why we're just moving targets for angry kids [Independent.ie]
- Published: 02 June 2010
In other countries if a kid doesn't manage a strictly prescribed decent average across his yearly exams then he doesn't move on to the next year. He stays back and does the year again. In Irish schools a pupil can learn as little as he or she likes.
He can disrupt the learning of other kids to his heart's content and we not only allow this but we facilitate it and, before you know it, he and the rest of the gang are parading around the school hall in their best designer gear on graduation night carrying a huge drawing of a pencil and other hackneyed symbols of how wonderful their years in school have been.
What do teachers make of this? They know that sometimes they're little better than the slaves of a handful of kids who thrive on negative behaviour like worms in a compost heap.
Full Story: www.independent.ie
