Read on Twitter
A few thoughts on this really crucial point. People will pile into the comments saying this is a US problem too. But I can’t emphasize enough how much more the UK systems militate against critical thinking. https://twitter.com/cstross/status/1352560708123308033
School years marked by 2-3 high stakes examinations that determine a student’s life path, with little reference to coursework done outside of examination conditions.
A university system in which your subject is set before you get to campus, your module marks can frequently be based on a single assessment worth 100%, disincentivizing exploration or experimentation. At some institutions, special subjects still involve a sat exam.
Making mistakes is a crucial part of how we learn. Trying things and not quite nailing them is how we improve. There is no space for that here, bc the only way to do well is to get into a subject groove and write the same kinds of essays.
I have been in meetings where I’ve heard that drafts are bad pedagogy. This from academics whose publications all go through peer review.
(Now to be clear, most of the time something glossed as “bad pedagogy” isn’t bad pedagogy necessarily but can’t get through quality assurance for reasons other than pedagogy or creates too much workload in a double marking/moderation/external examining system.)
All this to say, this does not create a citizenry that can easily call up its critical faculties when the government is chatting about herd immunity, waffling on masks, and refusing to talk about aerosol transmission, and that is so dangerous.
