Not caring about exams was teenage me's bluntest form of rebellion. My kids are different

Irish Times

12-06-2025

It's not really exam weather, which is a minuscule mercy for all the young people sitting down at desks in school halls across the country. I don't remember much about the
Junior Cert
which in my day was called the Inter Cert, but I'm nearly sure it was exam-season sunny back then.
In contrast, my daughters set off last week for their first exam under gloomy skies, clutching Leap cards and small plastic bags of pens and stationery. One daughter left her phone at home – 'too distracting' – but rang me from a friend's mobile minutes before the English exam so that I could read her some quotes from the battered flashcards she had left scattered across the kitchen table.
She was hoping for a question that allowed exploration of her views on the character of Portia in
Shakespeare's
The Merchant of Venice. 'Her ingenious, immovable and intelligent self enables her to find a way around all obstacles,' my daughter had written on a bright yellow card in blue pen. 'Because she is a woman, her father is still controlling her even from the grave.'
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'I have a whole feminist thing about Portia, Mum,' J told me as she went off to get the bus to her first State exam. 'Examiners totally eat that stuff up.' We had marked the auspicious occasion earlier by blasting out the song Drive It Like You Stole It from John Carney's film Sing Street, which is part of the curriculum. 'This is your life, you can go anywhere/You gotta grab the wheel and own it/You gotta put the pedal down/And drive it like you stole it.' My other daughter P danced about in the kitchen, energised by the message, and I thought about this wonderful world we live in where
English
in the Junior Cert now includes studying Carney as well as
Heaney
.
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I watched the two of them leave and felt a bit emotional. I wasn't sure why but hearing Heaney's Mid-Term Break read out as part of a last-minute cram over breakfast definitely didn't help. The exams marked another milestone for the girls, I suppose. I rang a friend with daughters also doing the Junior Cert. She was teary too. We talked about how proud we were of them but also about the privilege of even being able to do exams when there are a 1½ million girls and young women being subjected to gender-persecution in Afghanistan, banned from attending secondary school or university, who would give anything to be in their position.
We marvelled about how prepared our daughters seem to be, how invested in the challenge. I had been neither prepared nor invested in the lead-up to the Inter. I didn't care. My not caring was the bluntest form of rebellion. Caring about exams, according to teenage me, was too much like conforming. In fairness to her, she was a mixed-up kid.
In yet another contrast, my daughters have spent much of the past couple of months in their local Starbucks or the library studying their heads off. Self-motivated, I think you'd call it. All I know is that I can take no credit for their industry. And while Starbucks might seem like an odd study hall, I'm assured the coffee chain is conducive to academic preparation. At various libraries across the city, from Kevin Street to Raheny, they've been congregating in groups with friends, going through their topics in studious solidarity.
The wonderful innovation that is transition year will wipe the slate clean
The relief that I was not having to nag them to hit the books was immense. I just didn't have it in me to nag. Whatever about the
Leaving Cert
, the Junior Cert really doesn't matter except as a practice run for that more significant and consequential exam and I was never going to pretend otherwise. Anyway, the wonderful innovation that is transition year will wipe the slate clean and then, in fifth year, all the people who flailed or foundered in the Junior Cert can find fresh motivation. Or not. And in the end, they won't be defined by exams or points or
CAO
options or by how much history or Shakespeare they could regurgitate as a teenager but by who they are as people. By how they made other people feel. There are no State exams to measure that.
However it goes when those exam results envelopes are opened, all over the country, thousands of variously prepared or motivated young people have presented themselves to be examined. No matter what the outcome, they deserve our praise and admiration. These ingenious, immovable and intelligent boys and girls have been putting their best feet forward whatever that 'best' looks like, and we know 'best' is different for everyone depending on their personal circumstances. Some of them have parents who can afford maths grinds and Starbucks coffees, some know what it's like to go to school hungry or to have to study quadratic equations in a noisy hostel for the homeless.
Watch them all now, on the final lap of this gruelling exam course. Grabbing the wheel. Driving it like they stole it. Legends, every single one of them.