Sir, - Regarding boys' performance in the Leaving Certificate, quite clearly "laddish" behaviour militates against adequate study. Peer pressure favours irresponsibility. The laddish mentality gives priority to having cash, consumer goods, alcohol and drugs. Music and music-making equipment, gigs and clubs, cars and speed, football, mobile phones and laying a bird (if you can get one) are seen to be priorities. Individualism is praised. But "the lads" are seldom free people.
You might ask, "What's new?" The wealth of the Celtic Tiger is an infectious and contagious disease. Parents need to check their own level of infection and make positive efforts not to nurture and pass on the germs.
For "lads" at school the worst tragedy is to be classed as a "nerd" - studying seriously, being responsible, religious, unselfish, caring about people - such qualities put one outside the Pale and into "nerd" territory. There you may well be bullied, jeered, attacked and/or rejected.
Healing will include a system of education which enables people to think, to become truly human, to know who they are and where they are going and to have the commitment and courage to get there in spite of opposition. Let all this be one of the first debates in the senior cycle in the year ahead so that the subject gets an airing and suggested solutions from pupils and staff, can be heard. - Yours, etc.,
Angela MacNamara, Lower Kilmacud Road, Dublin 14.