Colman Noctor

And so I think the narrative around the Leaving Cert is like this is the big to be all and end all.

And that adds a pressure to young people who are doing it.

But in actual fact, the skills that you require to successfully negotiate working world and working life are much more about flexibility, adaptability than they are about being able to stick to a plan.

And while the Leaving Cert is certainly tough for lots of people, for some people who have a very linear memory based intelligence, it suits them very well.

It doesn't always translate that that will mean you'll be successful in the world of work or college or whatever it might be.

And you can get somebody who might come into third level and they're brilliant at remembering stats and they can write an essay perfectly, but their capacity to reflect or be abstract or to

demonstrate a degree of maybe alternative levels of compassion can be quite limited.

And so, as we say about the world of AI, those soft skills of flexibility, adaptability, social communication, those are almost the things that even the Elon Musk's and Sam Altman's of the world are saying that people will need going forward.

Yeah, and your development doesn't stop at 18.

You know, on your 18th birthday, you develop well into your 20s.

Do you know what I mean?

And I would say even childhood is shrinking on one side, but adolescence is stretching on the other.

You know, we're seeing children older, younger when it comes to 10, 11, 12, but we're seeing older young adults kind of younger when it comes to 18, 19, 20.

So you have to kind of factor that in.

But I love the example of child development and include up to about 25 with this.

It's like popcorn kernels.

If you put popcorn in the microwave under exactly the same conditions, the popcorn will all pop at different times.

And when you're eating your popcorn, you don't know which one popped first and which one popped second.

Do you know what I mean?

It's all the same.