A chara, - It seemed to me as I listened to the strident voices of ASTI members this week that the arcane and mysterious activities involved in the supervision of the Junior and Leaving Cert. Exams must be akin to the esoteric rituals associated with voodoo, freemasonry, the Ku Klux Klan or some combination of all three.
All this week we had to listen to teachers waffling on about the experience of classroom techniques, class management and handling sensitive teenagers. One could not be blamed for getting the impression that teachers regard the rest of us mortals as only slightly better than numbskulls, cretins or morons. There is, of course, a real irony here as the vast majority of the ASTI have only the minimum qualifications for teaching - a primary degree and a Higher Diploma in Education.
May I quote again, as I did some weeks ago in an earlier letter to you, from The Time of my Life, the autobiography of the former British Labour Party minister, Denis Healey? He is writing about the Suez Canal crisis at the time of Anthony Eden and says:
"The experts had all assured us that it was so difficult to navigate a ship through the Suez Canal that only a pilot trained by the Suez Canal Company could do the job. In the event a scratch team of pilots assembled by Nasser did the job to perfection without any training at all. The Suez Canal Pilot Syndrome always enters my head nowadays when I am told that some group of experts has a special skill which no one else can replace." Ab uno disce omnes! - Is mise,
Orla Ni Bhroin, Gibbonstown, An Muileann Cearr.