Sir, - I find it quite extraordinary that your Education Editor, Sean Flynn, can still claim that ASTI "does not offer anything in return for its 30 per cent claim". Teachers have transformed the education system over the past decade. Does this not constitute a large measure of continuous giving?
If a teacher who retired 10 years ago was suddenly to return to the "chalk face" he/she would feel like Rip Van Winkle. Gone is the rather slim grey-covered manual which we called the Department Syllabus, and which is now almost a relic of medievalism. Each subject area has been radically revamped, and teachers have embraced new programmes, new syllabuses and legislation. We have implemented a host of schemes to deal with societal changes.
You may ask how all this translates into an ongoing system of giving of one's time and energy. Allow me to illustrate the magnitude of change in one of my subject areas, Senior English. At present I am caught in the magical web of the wild, weird and wonderful poetry section, ranging from For Heidi With Blue Hair (Fleur Adcock) to A Narrow Fellow in The Grass (Emily Dickinson). Adieu to the tried and trusted Soundings Anthology, where we roamed with W.B. Yeats Among School Chil- dren and Patrick Kavanagh through The Stony Grey soil of Monaghan. The implementation of this course has certainly given all English teachers "Challenging Times", with a huge increase in preparation time and workload.
How is it that the media people and politicians haven't the faintest idea of what the new syllabuses in the subject areas entail? Come to think of it, our monotone Minister would be more at home felling trees than browsing through the pages of Atwood's Cat's Eye or Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. - Yours, etc.,
S.J. Conway,(ASTI Member), Shrule, Galway.