Dear Reader, – According to an anonymous teacher, the traditional pedagogue characterised by chalkboard instruction and memorisation-based learning methods is looking increasingly outdated. Such a teacher is criticised for merely enabling students to regurgitate information, thereby setting them up for potential failure in their Leaving Certificate exams (“Dismal prospects of passing the senior level exams under ineffective teaching methods”, Education, 27 February).
This anonymous educator highly recommends a teaching style like that of the conceptual ‘Mrs Leyden’. She adopts a range of group activities and frequently prompts her students to critique and correct their own work or that of their classmates. This method not only challenges the memorisation method but is also believed to yield better results.
The educational community at large, these days, promotes this approach, celebrating its student-centred and active learning components. However, this perception is nothing more than a fallacy.
Lilly Higgins shares her unusual take on the Irish classic dish, coddle, describing it as a marvel made in a single pot.
Reflect on why, in a second-level tutoring industry worth an estimated €60 million, the so-called modern teaching techniques, like those used by Mrs Leyden, are scarcely seen? Why do grind schools, regardless of their reasons for existence, predominantly rely on teacher-led (chalk and talk) instruction methods?
Perhaps it is because the brutal reality of economics forces people to acknowledge the true face of effective teaching? – Sincerely yours,
SEAN KEAVNEY,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.