This story confirms what all academics already knew. It’s particularly difficult in the humanities, and acute in my area, English Literature. I recently marked a series of essays on Jane Eyre by first year undergraduates. Hardly any of them bothered to consult any of the numerous secondary critical materials they could have accessed, relying instead on no secondary reading at all, or web sources ranging from the relatively advanced Spark Notes to the thoroughly disreputable essay mills. A couple were obviously plagiarised.
Students constantly complain about not having the time to read, and yet they have signed up as full timers – pursuing their studies should be their primary occupation. Too often, though, it isn’t. One student I spoke to recently said she was having difficulty completing work because of her outside job commitment. This turned out to be a 35 hour a week post on a telephone help desk. She seemed genuinely surprised when I said that I didn’t think she could do that and a full time degree. She’s not alone, and the consequences of this now well-established culture of semi-detached study is that students are increasingly unlikely to show any genuine intellectual curiosity. That in turn leads to the kind of instrumental view of education as a simple transference of knowledge from tutor to student, preferably bypassing the student’s brain.
I don’t know the answer to this conundrum. The increasingly consumerist view of education espoused not just by students but by government, actively discourages the kind of adventurous thinking that higher education is supposed to be about.
BBC NEWS | Health | Adverts ‘increase youth drinking’
The department of the bleeding obvious has come back strongly after the Christmas break. Apparently, advertising works. What’s more, it works better on young susceptible people. You’d never have guessed, would you?
BBC NEWS | England | Manchester | Pilot dumps drunk man on island This is excellent. It would be worth being four hours late to have seen this guy get what he deserved. Hurrah for that pilot!
This Christmas, BT have clogged the airwaves with their commercial for their fantastic new service which translates your text message into a voicemail. You text “see you later” and a robotic voice says “see you later” to the recipient. Now, am I missing something here? Since virtually everyone has an answer machine on their phone, wouldn’t it be easier to just say “see you later” for the recipient to hear your message spoken by you? We seem to losing sight of what phones are for. I understand the next breakthrough is a system where you dial someone, and when they pick up, you will be able to talk to them, just like a real conversation. Marvellous…
Our local paper reveals today that there has been a spate of thefts of Volkswagen wing mirrors by a gang they are imaginatively dubbing the VW mirror gang. It doesn’t have quite the ring of The Black Hand gang, or the Jesse James gang, does it? The thing is, my VW wing mirror was nicked a few weeks ago. I assumed it was some scally whose mirror was broken and who fancied mine instead. It’s now clear that VW wing mirrors across the Fylde are being nicked. But why? What’s the market? Do blokes sidle up to other blokes in pubs saying “Fancy a VW Wing mirror mate? Only a tenner.” Or what? Anyone out there know what might motivate a criminal to target VW (and not any other cars) wing mirrors?
Jeff Weintraub: “Life Reeked with Joy” Thanks to Norm for the link to this. The celebration of howlers is a regular feature of the educational end of term calendar. What’s great about this is that the writer has constructed a chronological narrative out of it.
I sent this to a colleague, who fired back a classic:
“In 1066, a man named Norman Conquest came to England and brought lots of French words with him.” (that’s from a first year undergraduate essay…)
Of course, I once did come across Mr and Mrs Conquest’s little boy Norman, but that will start us off on the barmy names thread again…
Selling Educashun :: Austin Mitchell’s WeBLOG :: Austin Powered
Austin Mitchell’s blog (thanks, Nogbad) uncovers what we already knew anyway – that the way Labour operate is all about presentation and nothing about substance. The “tool kit” with pre-prepared quotes for press releases is risible – or at least would be if it wasn’t frightening. I can recall a time not so long ago when people like Blair would have condemned such tactics as reminiscent of a fascist, control-freak state apparatus…
Here‘s another brilliant Owen Barder spoof. Can’t help feeling the BBC must be a bit miffed at what he does, especially as here it’s their product he’s using. Great idea, perfectly executed.
So who decided that George Best should have a state funeral? Because that’s what it was, with the thousands of mourners, the wall-to-wall live coverage on the TV, the endless stories in today’s newspapers, all with obligatory quotes about how George was the people’s prince…
The grief fest that, post-Diana, now seems obligatory, will obviously lead to a progressive upping of the stakes as more famous folk die. It seems to me that we can expect similar scenes when the following shuffle off their mortal coil:
Sir Thumbs Aloft (but not Ringo)
Lord Attenborough (but not David)
Sir Elton John
Sir Bobby Charlton
Sir Michael Jagger (but not Keef, who is clearly indestructible anyway)
Sir Trevor McDonald
Joan Collins
Lord Lloyd-Webber (but not Julian, or Tim Rice)
Any more?
Barter Books – Gift Shop
Kat has posted recently about mottoes. This seems a good one to me. A snippet in the Guardian sent me there. Seems like a very apt motto for these troubled times. It’s a great bookshop too…