First it was the Crazy frog. Then it was George Bush turning down the chance to save millions of lives in Africa. And now it's this: twittering, idiotic, gobshite Irish parents leaping on their soapboxes, scrambling on to their moral high horses and grabbing their rolling pins to indulge in what they they believe to be their God-given right as Irish citizens - talking complete and total shite. I'm telling ye - I can't take much more of this.
+Surprise, surprise+
As many of you will know, a horrific recent accident in Ireland claimed the lives of five school girls in Co. Meath: an incident which caused nationwide grief and anger at the disgraceful condition of our school bus services which should have provoked cabinet level resignations. Which, of course, it didn't. Surprise surprise.
Let me be clear: I intend no disrespect to to the bereaved, or the friends and family of the deceased. But todays' hysterical reaction to the news that an Junior Cert. English exam included a question on 'My school Bus journey' is just too much.
Says Eleanor Petrie of the National Parents' Council: "I think it is appalling that it was allowed to go ahead, with this question, knowing that we'd had this national tragedy"
+'Will some please think of the children?'+
So what's tomorrows' outrage Eleanor? A call for the removal of any mention of the holocaust from the History paper? An outright banning of any mentions of Tsunamis from the Geography paper maybe? Or perhaps a complete obliteration of any reference to the word 'recession' from the Economics paper? You never know, Tiny Tim from Bogsville, Co. Self-Importance might get upset because Daddy didn't get that wage increase this year and he can't afford that nice new shiny BMW to drive poor crippled Timmy to his horse riding lessons.
May I ask you Ms Petrie, how do you think a great number of the same students who saw this question today actually got to those exams? Assuming that the 5 series wasn't available, I can only deduce that they walked or (shock! horror! ) they took the bus. That's right: the bus. You may now feel free to wring your hands and screech about the disgraceful insensitivity of the authorities.
"Appalling" says Ms. Petrie. Appaling? The only appaling thing here Eleanor is that there are newspapers so desperate to shift units that they will fill their column inches with crap like this.
Please - shut yer yap and have a bit more respect for the teenagers you claim to protect. I'm sure they have greater worries (like those exams) to be getting on with.
Testify !
I'm not sure I'd be so fast to dismiss the criticism of the Exams Commission's decision not to replace this paper with the spare one they already have printed, in case of emergency.
It was foreseeable that an identifiable number of children, directly affected by the bus disaster, would be emotionally distressed by the question.
That there would also be children not affected is irrelevant. As it the fact that other children might be unforeseeably distressed by other questions on the paper. This was a predictable reaction to a non-course-specific question. It was therefore avoidable. Where distress, particularly of children under stress, is avoidable all reasonable action should be taken to avoid it.
More on the same sort of thing here
www.tuppenceworth.ie/blog/2005/06/what-would-reasonable-man-on-clapham.html
and in the comments to same too.
Simon, nice thoughts. I've posted a response here and not in your blog as yours doesn't allow unknown comments and I refuse to get a blogger i.d. just for that. Sorry!
As stated above, I believe the reaction in the media (notably the Irish Sun and the Indo today) is nothing short of ridiculous.
Teenagers are considerably more resilient than most people are giving them credit for. I also suspect that most would be laughing their asses off at the ridiculous hand-wringing going on.
The histrionics of Eleanor Petrie reminds me of Maud Flanders of the Simpsons fame jumping up and down screeching 'Will someone please think of the children?' in her finest puritanical 'Mary in Clontarf' Joe Duffy show voice.
I mean, seriously, what's next? Do we chuck a massive tarpaulin over every school Bus as it passes a child? Do we blindfold the children getting on to the buses? Do we remove any reference to car accidents for fear that we may offend a member of the 300 bereaved families that have members who died in car crashes in the Republic last year?
This is mumbo-jumbo, nanny-state moral high-horse nonsense.
There really are more important things happening in our country than this.
In response to Simon, the 'backup' paper existed in soft copy only. It had not been mass printed.
Such a heap of unadulterated rubbish. If anything, these kids could have been inspired into writing their most brilliant essay ever (sorry if that sounds very cynical).
It was called "My School Bus Journey" not "The Major Bus Accident that happened in Meath Last Month". They really do go too far....