Despite the media’s frequent claims that modern youth is being ruined by smartphones, I believe a more pressing issue is actually the existing examination culture. In Ireland and elsewhere, this system dominates education, making what is testable the main determinant of what is taught. The teachers who are deemed to be the best are those who can extract every single point from a student’s exam paper, by manipulating the marking guides. Other attributes such as spontaneity, innovation, early development and even creativity, are pushed aside in favour of uniformity and transparency.
Teachers are all too familiar with students losing interest when the topic won’t feature in their Leaving Cert. exams, which are no longer about assessing comprehension and critical thought, but classifying and preparing students for tertiary education. The key to succeeding in this setup increasingly appears to be continuous catching up. In the UK, a school pupil’s future grades are predicted using a ‘flight path’ system which is then divided into more manageable steps to monitor goal attainment throughout their school journey.
I began my teaching career at a secondary level in 1992, when classroom technology meant wheeling in a trolley with a television to play a hazy recording of King Lear from the Royal Shakespeare Society, or using an overhead projector to present handwritten notes on clear plastic sheets. Over the years, each time I returned to school, there had been a rise in the technology employed. Initially, this was a welcome and undoubtedly beneficial development, with mechanical record keeping, PowerPoint, YouTube and occasional iPad use. Most of the time, however, traditional teaching methods like verbal teaching, writing on blackboards and using books and pens were still customary.
However, since the Covid-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning in the stressful period prior to the cancelled 2020 Leaving Certificate, there has been not only a rapid increase in the deployment of technology in schools, but also minimal dialogue about it, except for the ongoing debate about smartphones.
Given the present-day education system, it’s highly plausible that achieving university education and eventually pursuing a career in teaching had never materialised for me. I was an atypical, uncontrollable student. I frequently deviated from designated coursework, prioritising reading books over completing homework assignments and procrastinating for weeks after brief periods of intensive studying. During my final year, I frequented public lectures at the National Gallery; once, a friend and I even ventured into the Goethe Institute for gratis wine on an otherwise mundane evening since she was contemplating a future studying German. The stress-induced frenzy of the Leaving Certificate in May was certainly daunting, but seeing the discipline of today’s diligent students, allocating around 10 hours daily between classes and libraries, I am not envious.
This year, once again King Lear is featured in the Leaving Certificate, and it’s likely students are already mining TikTok for potential exam questions they might encounter in June. However, I wonder if any have stopped to consider the significance of this play within their predicament, enmeshed in a world of forecasts, grades and examination points. Like these students hurdling towards a turning point without a moment’s pause to ponder the play’s meaning, Lear too is preoccupied with quantifying, not obviously CAO points, but affection. “Which among you,” he asks his daughters, “would you say professes the greatest love for us?” Like a misguided mathematician, the elderly king believes he’s discovered an equation for joy:
x + y = Love;
2x + 2y = Double Love.
In reality, all systems, including our education system, are underpinned by numbers. We inhabit a world that is facilitated by quantifiable data. How many views you receive, likes you gain, steps you walk, shares you achieve, points you earn, and euros you save up. Amidst the increasing chaos, the apparent orderliness of numbers is bewilderingly appealing.
Regrettably, reliance on technology as seen in the story of King Lear can result in disarray and the disappearance of all once cherished elements. In striving for a fair, uniform means for assessment, there’s a risk of trimming off the curriculum’s most significant factors for the younger demographic – the enchanting, inexplicable parts of knowledge – and substituting it with emotionless, dull, overly prepared content, built for passive takers and better matched for software parameters. We may witness the disappearance of individual, self-reliant intellect. A human, especially one in the process of maturing, isn’t just a bunch of data. Being human involves having flaws, being playful, committing blunders, goofing around and daydreaming, and deviating from planned paths, rather than following set courses.
Two noteworthy reports on technological incorporation in school settings come to mind. The Ratoath Report of January 2020, triggered due to parental discontent over student usage of iPads in a Meath school. The survey exposed a plethora of issues relating to how and to how great an extent these gadgets were used, resulting in discontuing the purchase of iPads for new first-year students. The preceding year, McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm, released a report on Europe’s 15-year-olds’ learning capabilities. The findings suggested that iPads, laptops or eBooks given to students in class seem to harm their education. These findings would likely have set off a broader discussion, had it not been for the Covid-19 outbreak. Actions were swiftly taken in the emergency that followed to uphold the bond between school and home. Now that the pandemic is over, neither has the conversation resumed nor has technology integration in schools been evaluated in our long-term educational strategy. Consequently, several schools risk being trapped in crisis-time decisions.
While we’re engrossed in discussions surrounding the Education Minister’s recent suggestion to enforce a smartphone ban within secondary schools, it’s essential to mention that school absenteeism rates have skyrocketed amid the pandemic. Simultaneously, the rate of advancements in artificial intelligence has exceeded previous predictions. Our prevailing examination-centred pedagogical approach implies an emphasis on a utilitarian perspective which is misleadingly presented to learners as a gold standard. They are led to believe that their curriculum embodies all necessary knowledge. We think we grasp the implications of this form of schooling – sifting the intellectual grain from the husk – but have we contemplated how it’s impacting our youth?
In Jonathan Haidt’s bestseller, The Anxious Generation, he attributes the escalating adolescent mental health crisis predominantly to smartphone use, describing social media as a paradox of compulsion: everyone feels obligated to engage with it because everyone else does. He ascribes the current unprecedented anxiety levels to the demise of a play-based childhood. His analysis may be valid, but there are no simplistic solutions to complex issues. Andrew Przybylski, human behaviour and technology professor at Oxford University, deemed Ormiston Academies Trusts’ publicity-seeking announcement of an impending smartphone ban at their 42 English schools as ineffective. Instead, he contends that technology companies should be held accountable.
Lear, driven mad by his self-detrimental calculations, ultimately confronts his folly, acknowledging, “O, reason not the need!” It’s a key turning point where he is finally, albeit belatedly, forced to introspect on the futility of his attempts to quantify love.
Imparting a sense of hollowness, the point system of the Leaving Certificate – a scheme that in recent times has proven a gamble with top score achievers failing to access their preferred courses – has been habitually magnified each year, its tremors persisting into the later part of September, only to seize an opportunity to accommodate another batch of coming sixth years. Yet, when it comes to explaining to students that the CAO does not designate any intrinsic worth to any specific course and that it is merely a question of demand, there’s often a blank expression in response. High points suggests a superior course while lower points indicate a less impressive one, with no consideration to passion, interest, or skill, simply amounting to a basic game of numbers. Cathy Sweeney, an ex-English teacher, has her first novel, Breakdown, published by W&N.