I am long enough now in the tooth of the incremental scale to have witnessed change a-plenty in our primary set-up. In the early 1970s, for instance, we got a fair-smattering of inseirbhis to help wing us on our way towards implementing the new Buntus Comhra iniative. And wing it we did, having little enough clue about, and even less confidence in, the whole caper, as we saw it.

This programme, the gurus of pre-Cornmaddy Marlborough Street assured us, would resuscitate the language as never before, and would have the children of Ireland ersing out of them in veritable tongues. After all, it was pioneered and proven in Scandinavia somewhere, for God's sake, and was therefore a breezeblock bet to fire up the diogras from Graiguemanagh to Gortlettragh, and all points in between!

But, naw, we teachers didn't think so. We had no meas on those little deilbhini grotesques, with their sandpapered rumps clinging precariously from the dusty, black nylon-board. As for the lessons themselves, we reckoned that in a comparison with the speaking clock, the "third stroke lady" had a positively Wildean banter when set alongside our drab new lessons. We knew it would not work. And it didn't.

Fast-forward now, if you will, to the current fashion for in-service, wherein our leaders insist - and rightly insist - that every curricular initiative must be accompanied by pertinent support for teachers, either in school or at central clusters. This has huge potential for us teachers and will greatly affirm practitioners in the delivery of the revised curriculum - provided (and this is a massive proviso) that we continue to have confidence in the providers.

Alas, there are murmurings already. Not a small few are now wondering how the same English "expert tutors" of last year miraculously crystallise the following year as expert tutors in art, craft and design.

And as for racism-in-service, the following true story illustrates just how wrong some of the providers can get it. Forget the rights and wrongs of the exchange, let us just call it Lesson One: How to Alienate your Audience!

Teacher (in unsure voice): "I would just be nervous of a Traveller family living next door to me." Then, to Tutor: "Would you like to have a Traveller family next door to you?"

Tutor: "I'll tell you this, I'd rather have one living next-door to me than to have next-door."

So, there you have it!