The end-of-school exam marks the end of one era and the beginning of another
THIS IS the time of year when panic sets in and perspective gets lost. It's here again: exam time.
It's the time when thousands of parents are organising their entire lives around just one thing - student exams.
In particular, the Leaving Certificate looms large because it is the culmination of school life, of this life-cycle stage and the end of childhood in the formal sense. That is often overlooked but adds to its emotional intensity.
The Leaving Cert represents much more than an exam. It is an emotional event. It is the end of 12 years of wishes, hopes, supports and input by a host of people into the education of each child.
This is 12 years of watching children grow from infancy to young adulthood. Parents will remember all the steps their children took on this educational road and how they took each step with them along that way.
Vivid images will arise for parents: the naming of objects by their child from a picture book; the intensity of infant concentration drawing a picture for the family fridge; and the thumb-by-thumb halting reading of first words.
They will remember the squiggling pencil across the page, the growth in knowledge, the confident essay, the impressive project and finally this wonderful young person, about to end school life and set out on the journey of life itself.
Leaving Cert students will also have their memories. They will recall many special teachers who taught them, encouraged them, guided them, nurtured them, believed in them and set them on a path they might otherwise have missed.
Sadly, some may have memories of the coldness of critique, the pain of effort misunderstood and the lack of belief in them that ended their relationship with a subject they once liked. Many students will remember the thrill of hearing new things, learning, knowing, growing in understanding, embracing ideas, rejecting ideologies, debating, challenging and receiving that most precious gift of all: an education.
There will be vibrant visual memories for students too: the first day at school, the first uniform, schoolbag and pencil case, and the importance of these symbols not appreciated at the time.
They will remember the crumpled sports gear, the school play, the class outings, an unexpected prize and the pain of none.
They will remember school holidays, the first day back to a new class and the expanding sense of their own selves, their personhood and their place in the group.
They may remember the enchantment of a sentence, the emotion in a poem, the thrill of physics and the magic of maths. They may remember the stories from history, the mastery of other languages and the weight of knowledge in heavy books and notebooks carried day after day.
Many students remember the smell of school corridors, the excitement on the playing pitch, the bustle towards assembly, the light through a school window catching chalk dust in its fall and the silent supplication of bowed heads at study time or in communal prayer.
They will remember friendships, intense, ended, revived, enduring, over or bound to last forever. They will still enjoy the camaraderie of comrades in adversity particularly now as the Leaving Cert is near - this last time together as a group that may have grown up with each other from the first school day.
As their children remember the past, parents will want them to know that they did what they could to help them. They will hope that their children will recall that they were helped in their studies, but more importantly how they were supported when they could not study at all.
And if parents could not help enough before this they will hope their children will know that they will support them now in this final phase. Because regardless of how well or badly study issues were managed by all of them, they have been on this learning adventure together for years and years.
As everyone remembers the past at this time, as emotion and anxiety get displaced on to points and careers, we do well to remember that the Leaving Certificate is a major emotional event and that is why there can be such passionate intensity about it.
It is more than an exam. It is a ritual. It is a rite of passage. It is a powerful ending and a new beginning all in one. It may be the end of "school" but it is not the end of education. It is not the end of life learning; it is not the end of learning about life.
Good luck to all.
• mmurray@irish-times.ie Clinical psychologist Marie Murray is director of the student counselling services in UCD and the author of Surviving The Leaving Cert: Points for Parents published by Veritas