Umm... what is a "descriptor" HH? Oh yes - I remember. It is yet another one of those ridiculous business-world gobbledygook technical terms. It is supposed to be something "more transparent", "more meaningful" and "more scientific" than a simple word like "descriptions".


The one flipside to this is that while you may be using them as "tools to serve what you want to do", the opportunity now arises for the students equally to use them as tools for not doing the things they do not want to do. Tell them that they should be wanting to do them and they will be able to point to the predefined list and say that they do not agree with you.


But the Criteria are not mere guidelines - they are a legally-binding part of the written contract (and can easily be challenged by students who might appeal on the grounds that they have been applied incorrectly or unfairly). They should, therefore, be THE ONLY legal benchmarks used in the process of examination. Their existence predicates that all individual examiners will (within reason) come up with exactly the same mark even before they compare them.


The problem with this scenario is that when (what I should term) "normal students" arrive on the scene, these are the ones (rather than [what I should call] the "subnormal majority") who get the extra attention instead of those who need it. Also, in view of the pressures upon time and human resource, the upside-down stupidity of this scenario actively discourages the selection of "normal" students because they are likely to take up more time and therefore be less cost-effective. This is the education system of the luny-bin!

Baz

I treat the question as being rhetorical because I think you must already know (from my previous postings) the answer.

Baz

With the greatest respect Ian, this posting was in my view so immature that I hesitated to respond to it. Unless my reading of the message is faulty (and I am sure you will correct it very quickly if so), it is your view that the actual purpose of research is merely one of "getting ahead in academia". Those of us who have spent a working lifetime undertaking research (with hardly any financial or career rewards worth mentioning) had "mistakenly" imagined that the purpose was to contribute to knowledge and understanding.

It seems clear (from your advice) that those of us who devoted our efforts to Early Music (for example) erred, and should instead have opted for Popular Music.

What a catastrophic mistake, and how sad!

Baz

With regard to Baz's use of the term: I don't know the answer. With regard to mine: I had some outstanding teachers at university who constantly surprised me by showing me ways of working which made me feel as if my perspectives had been enlarged. When I take part in discussions like this, I start out from the position of trying to imagine how other students could be given the same sort of experience (the same depth of experience) that I had myself. I don't have any objections to measurement but I have personal experience of educational results which I can't easily imagine how one would measure, and it does worry me to think that other students might be denied these results because an exaggerated preoccupation with accountability leads their teachers to concentrate only on what is measurable. I'm pretty sure that my best teachers didn't think in those terms.

I take your point, t-i-n, but suppose that one needs to filter into the equation the fact that many students might not see the results that you see as being so valuable from your own education as necessarily being the most important things, either in themselves or in terms of career prospects.

This is crazy Ian! One does not in any way need "to filter in" such nonsense! Universities should be offering an opportunity - backed by expertise - for prospective students to develop in a meaningful way their educational/intellectual acumen. If they do not feel that these opportunities are relevant to their ambitions then they can take a job a Tesco!

The only thing that obstructs this "normal" position is the intrusion of non-educational gurus who have been "inserted" by a government-initiated bureaucracy more interested in spreadsheets, balance sheets, accounts, "value for money", business-speak, targets, jargon, "transparency" and "accountability" - not a single one of which has any connection whatsoever with EDUCATION.

The astonishing fact is only that our educators have failed in their duty to resist this incursion, and (indeed) many have passively succumbed to it. That is, of all things, the saddest.

Baz

If you really believe that you must be more self-deluded than even I was aware. Perhaps once more you are mistaking me for someone who gives a flying damn about you or your opinions.

I find it interesting that hh and t_i_n have a different perspective on the measurement issue from those of us who studied at university before such things became all-pervasive. Thinking that achievement in the context of, for example, a course in composition can be measured in this way is a little like claiming to have an infallible set of rules by which compositions can be assessed, which (pace member Grew) is something we know to be impossible. I've been looking through some of these specifications recently and trying to think of compositions which wouldn't meet any of the criteria but which would have to be given a high grade if the marking system wasn't to look foolish, and I didn't have to try very hard.

In my view - and genuinely with the best will in the world - all this is only because you do not view your real environment through the eyes of a true educationalist, but rather through those of a pseudo-politician. That, surely, is why your view of objectives and attainments is so limited. Research is thus "targeted" and "sidelined"; student expectation is only what you feel they expect of themselves; "theorists" are de facto to be mistrusted; "systems" are to be preferred to processes. I could go on and on, but am too respectful of the tolerance levels of others to do so.

It is, I fear, all too common these days to find people of your persuasion who (with no ill feelings at all) assume that their role is to be part of a transmogrification of the very life-blood of Society and its Education. They should perhaps think a little more clearly about what they are consigning to the scrap-heap of posterity before so readily doing it.

Best,

Baz