With the Leaving Cert around the corner how can students stay sane, and what can parents do to support them ?

The Pat Kenny Show. With Timber Living Log Cabins. Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. on News Talk. Conversation that counts. Well, years of schooling have prepared them for this and yet as the date inches closer, it's up to them and their families to ensure they perform at their best. What are we talking about? The leaving cert, which begins this coming week. Counselor and education columnist for the Irish Times, Brian Mooney, is with Miseudier Brian. Good morning. Good morning, Pat. Now, I can remember even though all those years ago, I can remember the unease, the sense of trepidation I had in the weekend before the late in the cert. Yeah. It's a very fearful time. You know, you spent two years working on seven or eight subjects and now it's here. You know, now it's here. I mean, you've had a few hints. You've had your marks back in probably February. You had your oral's over Easter. You've put in a few projects in relation to subjects where there's a project element. But now you've got English paper one on Wednesday morning and you're thinking about Macbeth and you're thinking about Shakespeare and you're thinking about your poets and which ones are going to come up. And you're a bit nervous, yeah. Now, the question of what to study at this late stage. You've got limited study hours. Do you kind of hone to perfection the stuff you almost know to perfection or do you go scrambling around trying to find stuff or knowing where the stuff that you are a weekend lies? Well, look, the leaving search is a marathon. And you know, if you're running a marathon, you know, in a sense, a couple of days before the marathon, you're not trying to get any fissure in a sense because you've done it. You've prepared for it. The knowledge, the actual knowledge you have in your head is probably not going to be enhanced in any way over the next 48, 70 to 20 hours. It's how you use it and it's how you process the exam paper when you go into it. Yes, you're absolutely right. It's, you know, you're doing seven or eight subjects. It's over three weeks. You've got your Irish and your English and your maths kind of concentration in the first few days. So should you concentrate on them? Absolutely. And then it spreads out. You know, I mean, you could have three or four days between, you know, your second or last paper and the previous. So don't even worry about the subject. Okay, so park those. Absolutely, because you're going to have loads of time. So, you know, right now, obviously, you're going to be focusing on English paper one. And obviously, some people will be doing, you know, one of the minority subjects in the afternoon, but effectively for most people, it'll be a half day and then they will have an opportunity to prepare for the next day's paper. So be strategic and, you know, make sure that you, you know, you understand the structure of the paper, you make sure what in fact, you know, you're, you're preparing for. And the most important thing part is, when you go into the exam, read the paper fully before you start the paper and go to the back of your answer book and, you know, be jotting down over a matter of two or three minutes. - Your first thoughts. - Your first thoughts, because what's gonna happen is, as you settle into whether it's the essay or whatever, your brain subconsciously is going to be working on the things you haven't remembered. And as the thoughts come into, flick to the back of the answer book, write down the keyword or whatever. So that as you go to the exam, by the time you get to the end of this, you will have effectively drained your brain of all of the knowledge you have. And of course, the most important thing, as both you and I know from people who write and do journalistic work, if you write something, reread the damn thing before you step up from the exam hall, if you have the few minutes. - Now question Brian, at the moment, marking papers, I know a lot of teachers don't like doing it, but for some it is a handy little earner. - It is. - Is AI going to take over that? - Well, scan the paper and off you go. Look for the keywords. - Yeah, well look, they certainly, the papers are already scanned. I mean, the teachers are no longer God be, but the days when you carry that bloody heavy sack, with 500 scripts from in that loan, back to your car, you know, I remember with fond memories, but it's all scans now. So teachers are actually correcting online and there is a marking scheme. Will we get to a point where the creativity of individual students is missed because they're just looking for keywords? I would hate to think so, but AI is going to have a huge effect. - Isn't it important though, this idea of keywords? - Yeah. - That if you mention say the five key things the examiner is looking for, the fact that you might go on scribble on to 10 or 12 themes. Not necessary. - That's what I meant about strategic part. If you think about it, I mean, doing an exam is like having 40 little egg cups and a jug. - Yeah. - You have to fill each one to the brim, but don't spill any of the liquid and that you'll have enough for the 40. And it's ultimately, that's the key to success in exams. It's about the strategy. It's about knowing how the marking scheme works and they're all up on the State Exam's commission website. You've been looking at them for two years. You know what they're looking for. So it's not about your intelligence or it's not about your creativity in some one sense. It's about filling the actual structure that they're looking for. That's what the Leaving Search is ultimately about. When you go on to college or university, you can be creative and all of that sort of stuff. But for the Leaving Search, a lot of the time it's about making sure you deliver what's expected. - Let the greater the marker know that you know. - Exactly. - Exactly. Now the other thing is you say work on topics that you're already quite good at because that kind of revision will get you the higher grade and maybe get you a place in college that you might not otherwise have expected. - Well, again to the day, you know, provided you give the four points. It's about how you develop each point. But at the point where, as I said, at the having written the paper, you know, you have in August these people, I missed my course by five or 10 points or 15 points. Every single exam, it is a marathon. It's so important, and this is where parents come in and the home environment come in. Every single exam is key because, you know, it's like in a match, you know, that the team goes off the board for 15 minutes. You can't go off the board for 15 minutes. You cannot go off the board for one exam. You have to be on message and therefore diet and, you know, getting sleep and not eating junk food and trying to keep yourself mentally sharp for the whole three weeks. It is so important. That is the key to getting those high grades at the end of the day. It's about consistency. It's about ensuring that you prep for every exam that you, as I said, reread the paper at the end if you have a few minutes. And if you notice that you've missed something, you know, John, and then, therefore if you're doing a question, leave a bit of space after every question. So you have somewhere to write those. - To do those. 'Cause even if they are not coherent in the sequence. - Yes. - If they're there, you get the marks. - They get the marks exactly. - What about planning your time? Because as you say, it's all laid out. Everyone knows what day or afternoon or morning the particular exam is going to be. Would you tend to do a kind of a template of the whole exam period and say, "Well, this is where I'll revise my French "and this is where I'll revise my physics?" - And also from a parents' point of view. You know, it's also important that you are totally aware where your son or daughter has to be at what day, at what time. Because under the stress of all of this and over a three week period, it is so easy for somebody who may have been, you know, studying late or something. Parents go off to work and you just fall off to sleep again. I mean, your responsibility as a parent in one sense is to ensure that on a daily basis, you know where your son or daughter needs to be in terms of the day or the afternoon or the morning and that if there's a lunch to be prepared that is sitting in the fridge ready for them. - And do we know if it happens often that the kids miss exams? - Oh, they do. I mean, it happens. I mean, you have the scenario where a principal who's obviously still present in the school is approached by one of the invigilations to say, "This particular student's on my list, they haven't turned up the ring in the house "so the ring in the student's mobile phone, they're in bed." And of course, if you don't turn up what I said, I think it's a half an hour within the first half hour, you're not allowed into the center, so it can get pretty hairy. - Now, you mentioned the parents. Some of the questions for many parents is, should I butt out or butt in? You know, the parent who will be saying, "I told you, I warned you." - Yeah, exactly. Okay, here's the key part. Ultimately, as a parent, no matter what you do, you cannot add one single mark to the script that's already happened. So, how was today, no matter what they say, and what's up next? Move on. - Move on. - What's up next? And are there anything that key things that you're expecting to come up? What the, in other words, when you have been sitting for three hours doing an exam, there's an awful lot of energy, the stress build up in your body. So, when you go home, if you can just vent, - Yeah. - Now, in turn, move on. - Now, venting sometimes for kids these days, it's all about social media. They come out of an exam, and immediately they're on their social media, how'd you get on, and you get the, the person is gonna boast, oh, it was a daughter. - Yeah, exactly, yeah. - And that's gonna be upsetting if I didn't feel the same way, but, so should you stay off social media, or is it a kind of a crutch that is useful? - Well, I would say that, you know, stay off if you can, but ultimately at the end of the day, an awful lot of the bullshishers who are going on about what you're suggesting, you know, will not be the ones waving with Lee, their exam scripts in the end of August, at the end of the day, have confidence in yourself, you've worked on this stuff for two years, you know, you've put in your own effort, you are going to get the fruits of your work. Whatever you do, you're gonna get the fruits of your work. And don't worry about the next guy, or the next girl, or whatever. - Now, people are very intent on trying to give themselves little recreational breaks. - Yes. - And sometimes that's good. If you go out and, you know, play your game of football with your teammates, that's probably a good thing. However, going to the backfield with a few cans, might not be the best thing to do in the middle of an exam. Well, that's what I'm saying to you, Pat, in terms of being a marathon. You know, when you're on the marathon, there are people handing you water. You know, they're not handing you beer. You know what I'm saying? And at the end of the day, what you need to do is to ensure, as I said earlier, consistency and you're at your sharpest and best and absolutely over the three weeks, you need to recreate. You need to do the things that you enjoy doing. If it's going and looking at a movie or whatever it is, or just going to the theater or going to a play, or anything that gives you extreme supports, you do not want to end up doing the next exam in plaster cast in a hospital bed. But within the relative safety of not doing anything that's unlikely to happen. You're giving your mind a rest. And it's important that you do. Because to be able to remain sharp over three weeks for maybe 12 papers across seven or eight subjects, you literally have to be able to recreate. Because otherwise you're going to be exhausted halfway through and then your performance is going to go down. In terms of stress, some people don't handle stress well and other people thrive on us. What can you do about that? I level, if you're not feeling anxious about your leaving cert, you know, something wrong with you. You need to check whether your heart is still beaten. I mean, at the end of the day, you need stress to ultimately motivate you. It's an adrenaline. It gets you focused. It gets you sharp for the exams. If it gets to the point where you're having difficulty breathing or you're having difficulty sleeping, sleeping, go and see your GP on Tuesday morning. You know what I mean? You might need something to relax, but be careful because ultimately you can relax to the point where your performance is. And you don't care. You don't care. And the drop's considerably. Finally, Brian, I know we're talking about the leaving cert which begins on Wednesday, but throwing forward a bit the CAO, are there any things that people should know now about the CAO and change of mind? About 60,000 people who are doing the leaving cert this year will have applied to the CAO and ultimately about 95% of them are only going to finalise their choices between the end of the exams and around the 20th of June and the end of the month, the 1st July, which is the deadline. And at the back of their minds, students, even though they're focused on their subjects, are worried about this. And one of the things I'm finding talking to students at the moment is they're concerned about AI. Yeah. They're looking at your reports that effectively graduates are not finding it difficult to get work. My advice to them is this part. At the end of the day, you're going to spend three or four years in college. Do something you are passionate about. You'll enjoy college then. You'll enjoy college and you will become a better person and a stronger person. And at the end of the day, the world of employment is going to change. When I started work, I walked into a building where 30 girls sat in a room behind type writers and the noise was deafening. And the brothers might have been down in the docs working on loading ships. All of that work is gone, but the work has been replaced by other work. And society is brilliant at creating ways in which people can spend their money. I was at a careers event there the other day. I had to speak into Marty Monerci, about this Marty Party event. 600 people go on out and spending several thousand euros, you know, for a week, just listening to Dana and Johnny Logan and also I think people will find ways to create economic activity. And I'm not suggesting that people are going to spend their life going to parties. But ultimately, human beings will find ways of creating need which creates jobs in every area of human skill and ability. It's up to pay me to go to that part. At the end of the day, humans have created needs and if you study something that you love, whether it is mathematical or literary or, you know, artistic or whatever, computational jobs as in data processing are probably going to disappear and say, "And actually, Luke and I will come in later on in the morning to talk about that very thing which jobs are most likely to go on what the alternatives would be." What the alternatives would be, but students should not be worried about that because in five years' time, the landscape would be so different, so just pick the courses that you're passionate about that you've looked at and you say, "I would love that. That's the one to go to college and enjoy it." Absolutely. Brian Mooney, thank you very much for joining us. Guidance, counselor and education columnist with The Irish Times. The Pat Kenney Show on News Talk. With Timber Living Log Cabins.