Uncertainty, the mother of opportunity reviewing teaching as a way of life in Ireland in the early 21stcentury

Let me begin with a few reflections on the less than happy state of affairs in teaching in Ireland in the last few years. When we think of the contrasting responses among Ireland's teachers to the developments that have taken place in the profession since the issuing of the 1992 Green Paper Education for a Changing World (Govt. of Ireland, 1992), the spectrum of belief, outlook and hope described above by Dickens springs to mind. Looking back over the history of Irish education, it is hard to recall a time when teachers took such fundamentally differing standpoints among themselves in analysing current developments in the profession and in discerning its future prospects.