The cumulative frequency ogive of despair ...

If you are wondering what on earth an cumulative frequency ogive is, take a peek at this site.

Speaking to a former colleague this week, whose establishment is in special measures after a series of publicly documented f**k ups by the senior management. They are describing a culture that is now so bent (as in focussed) on lesson observations. That they are not giving any of the staff time to complete mundane tasks like --- marking the students work.

Maybe I am a little dated in my thinking, but experience has proven that this one act tends to excite the students more than any wonderfully entertaining and grade one teaching you may offer. At this stage in the academic year, one would be keen to capture what is in their brains so the students may get graded and possibly have credit towards that unusual item that academic establishments provide. Yes, you know, the --- qualification.

Experience has seen that when marking is left to the last minute, it is rushed and often incorrectly assessed. Putting staff under pressure for marking time seldom illicit accurate results. Yet it happens, creating a situation where at best, you may have some inaccurate results, at worst there is a fraudulent reporting of work that is nowhere near standard. As the poor teaching staff have lacked the time to take action, already overwhelmed by the whole 'special measures' equals teaching experience.

As each new batch of marking comes in and time is not being leveraged so that the marker can 'do their duty'. A cumulative frequency ogive of despair slowly accretes, consuming all who are involved.

Please do not get me wrong, teaching is very important, but if you cannot get the assessment right. The teaching has had no value whatsoever.


Comments

  1. Anonymous15 April 2015 at 14:38

    I can totally agree with your comments as we are currently experiencing the very situation.

    ReplyDelete

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