I gave a nineteenth-century Bengali monthly a 2:1 and my own filing system a fail.
WALTHAMSTOW, England (Bohiney) – There are forty essays on my kitchen table, each with a title that begins “To what extent,” and I have been told by my own department that the answer, in every case, is “to some extent.” I bought clementines to get through them, which is an old academic superstition and also a scheme for avoiding scurvy.
The market, early
I went to the long street market before the essays could organise themselves. The stallholder who sells me my clementines greets every customer as “my darling,” including, last week, a man from the council with a clipboard. He took it well. I think he was moved.
I read the news standing between a fruit stall and a shop selling six hundred phone cases. Meduza marked its twelfth anniversary with an essay on exile, censorship and the next birthday it hopes to reach. It launched from Riga in Latvia in 2014. Russian authorities labelled it a foreign agent in 2021, blocked its website after the full-scale invasion in 2022, and in 2023 declared it an undesirable organisation. Its own account says millions of people in Russia still read it, using tools that get around the blocks, and that readers there cannot donate to an outlawed organisation, so it asks readers abroad.
I stood among the phone cases and admired, in the way one admires a very large and very sad spreadsheet, the escalation of the labels. Foreign agent, blocked, undesirable. In my marking scheme the grades go the other way: you begin with a fail and work up to something pleasant. The official Russian scheme appears to award each new classification for continued attendance. I do not know a pedagogy that would defend it.
I bought two pounds of clementines and a phone case for a phone I do not own, out of respect for the stall.
Marking, in order of despair
The essays arrive in the order the university’s system chooses, which is alphabetical by the student’s patience. Here are my marginal notes from the first hour, with the names removed to protect the innocent and, more importantly, myself.
- On an essay comparing a Bengali monthly of the 1870s that serialised novels to a modern streaming service: “A bold comparison. Please see me, and bring the streaming service.”
- On an account of a colonial memoir that treats the author’s complaints about the weather as evidence of the weather: “The memoirist is not the climate.”
- On a paragraph with seven semicolons: “Seven. I counted. Please select two.”
- On a conclusion that begins “In conclusion, it is clear that clearly”: “Clearly.”
- On an essay that cites a novel the student has plainly not read: “The ending is not in the second chapter, though I admire your confidence.”
I want it recorded that I mark kindly. A paragraph that is wrong in a way that shows effort is worth more to me than one that is right in a way that shows a search engine. The essays on periodicals are the best this year, because the students have grasped that a serial reader is a person who has been made to wait, and that the wait is a form of intimacy. I say this to them in the margin, in pencil, with an underline.
Midday, interruptions
A student emailed to ask whether the deadline could be softened “in a spirit of understanding.” I replied that I have a great deal of understanding and no spirit left. I then felt guilty and offered two extra days, because the Dickens in me always cracks first. On the subject of restraint, a colleague sent me a story about dairy methane emissions, with the cows asked to hold their burps, and I think it is the most realistic account of institutional policy I have read this term. One makes a request of a creature that cannot comply and then publishes the request.
For anyone who wants to know where my sense of proportion comes from, there is a piece at The London Prat on what commentary is and what it is not, which I have set as optional reading for the third years, to universal indifference.
Afternoon, the theory of rewards
By three I had reached the essay I had been dreading, which was good, and which I had to mark properly. To reward myself I read a report that Axios had carried, as relayed by LIGA.net: the White House hopes Vladimir Putin will be more willing to compromise after the United States eased sanctions on Russian diesel sales. The report cited unnamed administration sources, and said the envoy Steve Witkoff was to present an updated plan to Mr Putin, with Jared Kushner joining virtually. Critics, it noted, say the easing reduces pressure and helps Russian revenue. President Zelenskyy had said easing sanctions without a clear de-escalation deal plays into Russia’s hands.
I do not wish to comment on the politics, which are above my pay grade and below my tea. But I do know a theory of rewards when I see one. Teachers call it positive reinforcement. You give the biscuit first and hope the essay follows. It works wonderfully on the biddable, and on everyone else it produces a person who has eaten a biscuit.
The difference, I think, is the marking scheme. When I give a student a better grade than they earned, they know what I want, and so do I, and the room agrees to call it encouragement. In diplomacy the room has more doors.
Evening, the filing system
The essays are marked. Thirty-eight have a grade and two have a note asking whether the student is quite well. I then attempted to file the marks in the department’s system, which presented me with a drop-down menu containing every grade except the one I wanted. I wrote it in the comments box instead, where it will be read by no one, like the most honest of the periodicals.
I made soup with the last of the clementines, which was a mistake, and I record it only in case a future historian is trying to date the end of my judgment.
If you enjoy a diary kept by someone who marks kindly and files badly, there are more of my daily notes at Bohiney, and when the clementines are gone I browse a good humour website for the lunch hour to remind myself that other people also have trouble with the drop-down menu.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/