This issue of Education and Living coincides with the Junior Cert art exams and the conclusion of the almost year-long art project, while on Thursday and Friday of this week, the Leaving Cert art practicals will be run for the first time. This period has become somewhat manic for Junior Cert art students, teachers and parents, attempting to finalise projects to meet the deadline. I would like to raise one issue surrounding the timing and structure of the project. The project my students undertook - making puppets - is time-consuming and remember that, as the selected option within the project, the puppets are only one of the twelve tasks to be completed.
Now, after 10 years of the Junior Cert, the Department of Education and Science is out of touch with teachers, students and parents on one key factor regarding the successful management of the art project.
The project can be an immensely satisfying and rewarding experience, but time-consuming, and yet each year, the Department maintains the start-up date in late October. Therefore, students and teachers, in a sense, sit with their hands tied, unable to begin work during two valuable months when, having returned after the summer holidays, everybody has bundles of energy and enthusiasm. Without the project themes being released by the Department, meaningful work simply cannot begin. This is a dreadful waste of valuable time, and work starts late on the project, exacerbating all the difficulties in an exam year.
The late start-up cuts down on the amount of contact hours for the art teacher and the class on the project, a crucial factor where so much individual assistance is necessary. The project workload then runs into the later part of the year, conflicting with all the demands which other subjects make on students.
Parents and teachers of other subjects express concern at how the project tends to occupy students' attention at the expense of their work in other areas approaching exam time. An early start of the project on September 1st would minimise all these problems. It would also be in the spirit of this wonderful project, allowing time, a most valuable commodity and an essential ingredient necessary to help remove the stress which has become associated with the Junior Cert art project in the final term.
On a related issue, in the first year of the Junior Cert, the original plan was that Junior Cert art projects would be sent to Athlone to be marked, and never seen again. That, of course, was quickly changed to school-based marking and the work being returned to students. This is very valuable, from a teaching perspective, with examples of projects from past years available for students to see. However, this enlightened thinking has not spread to the Leaving Cert. It is time to put a stop to the Athlone bonfire, which is where all Leaving Cert art work ends up. I have seen Leaving Cert students really excel themselves, producing their finest work for the mini-projects in design and craftwork and in all the other areas of still life, imaginative composition and figure drawing. It is really disappointing that this work is not returned to the students and schools where it was produced, so that in turn, it would act as inspiration for next year's students. What a dreadful waste, surely. Is there not something actually immoral about incinerating the creative work and expression of young people.
Tom Shortt, art teacher, Scoil Carmel, Limerick
