Exam Time!

I don't think anyone who sat the Leaving Certificate will ever forget anticipating or doing the exams! The exams are well underway now with the preparatory work done or not done. Either way, the experience is a step on life's journey gaining from the dedicated study time or gaining a lesson in life on what it takes to achieve one's goals! On the other hand, perhaps Leaving Cert is not the step that will lead to the next desired goal in life.

Weekends and days between exams are sometimes post-mortem periods for students and those who support them. Some students benefit from post-mortems as a reassurance of good progress and for others the same process opens up a pit they'd prefer to leave behind and to look towards the next paper instead. There is no right or wrong in this as it depends on the individual personality of the student concerned. There presents a tension for those who are supporting the student in an effort to do the right thing in unknown territory.

The Leaving Certificate, or any other exam, stands in a moment in time as a stepping stone into a future hoped for and yet unknown. There are many other stepping stones leading towards the same hopes or through new life-learning that might bring one a totally different direction. The journey of life never follows the straight line that might be originally anticipated. The journey of life has a series of blind bends on the road that can lead to Wow moments or moments that challenge us to find a different direction. It's in those moments that we find out what we are really made of. In those moments we deepen friendships and discover new friendships.

To students in the process of sitting exams, just keep going, doing what is your best in this moment in time. There are lessons being learnt as well as results being gained, so nothing is wasted, no matter what. Exams of this form work really well for some. For others, exams are not the form that will aid them to affirm their best personal gifts and talents. It's only one process on life's journey with a world of new, yet unknown, opportunities opening for each one regardless.

Best of good luck and good wishes to all concerned.

Cathy Burke
Catechist in the Lucan Partnership of Parishes