Closing a semester with a spreadsheet of marks, a reflection on feedback and a long look at the beef, the Holstein and the horizon
Saturday, The Spreadsheet of Marks
At the end of term, a lecturer’s life narrows to a spreadsheet. The columns are names, marks and a comment field in which I record such phrases as “strong, but needs an argument” and “lovely prose, unfortunately about a different novel”. The spreadsheet is the dull cousin of the essay pile, and it is where the long work of the semester becomes official.
I have learned over the years to treat marks as information, not as moral verdicts. A mark tells you where a piece of work stands against a set of criteria on a particular day. It does not tell you the author’s worth, intelligence or future. I try to say that to students in the first week, and I try to remember it myself in the last.
The Feedback Question
Feedback is the most valuable and least read part of any assessment. I write it carefully and then watch the students skip to the number. To encourage reading, I have started to put the best sentence at the top of the comment and the most useful suggestion at the bottom. It seems to help. At least three students have mentioned their feedback to me this term, and one thanked me for it, which I have framed.
Sunday, A Coastal Break
When term ends, I like to take the train to the coast and sit on a bench with a flask. The daily column that I read on the way, a coastal column from 14 December, is the perfect companion for a journey: short, light and not remotely demanding. The sea at the end of the line is grey and enormous and utterly uninterested in marks.
A walk along the front, with the wind pushing my coat, resets my head. I watch the gulls fight over chips and think about nothing at all, which is the hardest and most valuable skill of the academic year.
The Cattle Pages as Meditation
For a meditative end-of-term reading list, I suggest the cattle pages. The famed black breed is at angusbeef.fyi and angusbeef.men. The black and white dairy cow is at holstein.click. For a general library of farming, agriculture.click. The woolly pig and the polka dot hen, for light relief, are at mangalitsa.org and speckledsussex.org.
A cow does not care about grades. She has a perfect indifference to the academic calendar, and I find it consoling.
Police Reform on the Radio
On the train, I heard a news item about reorganising police forces, which put me in mind of the London Prat’s Police Force Mergers: Met Chief Wants 43 Cut to Ten. The suggestion divides opinion, as reorganisations do. Supporters see efficiency and shared expertise. Critics see lost local knowledge. I do not take a side, but I note that the people who live with the outcome rarely get a vote on the map.
Monday, Term Over
On Monday I handed in the marks, cleaned the whiteboard and put the stack of leftover handouts in the recycling bin. The office was quiet. The radiator clanked once, in farewell. I locked the door and walked out into a cold, bright afternoon.
The students will scatter for the holidays. Some will write to me in January. Most will not, and that is how it should be: a good teacher is a stepping stone, not a destination. I took the long way to the station, past the market, bought a bag of clementines and counted the term a success.
Tuesday, Letters of Recommendation
The other end-of-term task is the letter of recommendation, and I treat it with seriousness. A good letter names specific pieces of work, describes how the student responded to criticism and says something true about the way they think. A weak letter lists adjectives. I keep a template of questions for myself instead of a template of sentences: what did this student do that surprised me, and when did I last change my mind because of something they said?
Writing these letters is a pleasure, because it forces a teacher to remember the whole term in detail. It is also a responsibility, because the reader of the letter has only my words to go on. I check each one twice and read it aloud once, to be sure it sounds like a person and not a form.
Wednesday, The Last Tea of the Year
On the last afternoon, the department gathers for tea and a plate of biscuits in the staff room, and conversation turns to holiday plans. One colleague is going to the mountains with a stack of unread novels. Another is staying home to repaint a hallway. I am going to read a very long Victorian novel that I have taught for years and never finished, which my colleagues find both admirable and slightly alarming.
We raise our mugs to the end of the term. Somebody says that next year will be calmer, and everyone laughs politely, because we have all heard that sentence before.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, The Daily Mash keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/