A chara, – Whisper it as there are many teachers, parents and Department of Education officials that may not want to hear it, but there is more than a little truth in the suggestion by Matthew Harrison (May 9th) that secondary school projects are not always the exclusive work of the student.
Almost every Leaving and Junior Cert subject now has a second mode of assessment, be it project, practical or portfolio, and it is not unknown for a student to drift through this work, hand up poor project drafts and then arrive on deadline day with a top-class final version. I may be totally politically incorrect in saying so but it is rarely the child from a working-class background that does this.
In truth, however, it is not parents that are the worst offenders but us teachers.
Year after year I observe teachers across a range of subjects repeatedly re-editing, recorrecting and in a few cases actually dictating project work to such an extent that the line between the student’s and teacher’work has not so much been blurred as crossed. Privately many of the correctors of state exams will admit that it is impossible to differentiate between the various grades on project work alone and that the uniformly high standard in projects is clearly attributable to teacher effort rather than that of the student.
The fact that some teachers are actually doing project work for students hasn’t gone unnoticed by the State Examinations Commission. Earlier this year the chief examiner’s report for the Leaving Cert Applied found “evidence of an inappropriate level of teacher guidance in some centres”. This report continued by saying that “This was evidenced by a high level of uniformity of tasks within a class group, a lack of understanding of the aims and purpose of the task, and, in particular, inconsistency between the task report and candidate knowledge and understanding, as demonstrated at interview.” The report concluded that “Some investigation-type tasks lacked originality and were, in the view of the examiners, excessively teacher-led.”
Teachers and parents clearly feel under pressure to achieve the highest grades possible for their students. This pressure, along with an immense dedication to their students, has forced some to cross the line between guidance and involvement in project work, perhaps without even realising that they have transgressed.
Forcing teachers to grade their own students for State certification as is proposed will not only exacerbate this situation but will lead to unhealthy competition between schools in the production of results. One has only to glance at our neighbouring system where a culture of relentless testing, spurious league tables and artificial competition between schools has damaged both education and teachers’ professionalism to such an extent that recovery may take decades.– Is mise,
KEVIN P McCARTHY,
Killarney, Co Kerry.