Despotic tyranny ruined my life
Jul. 17th, 2009 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyI don't know if you caught this one; A-level Modern History students complaining that their final exam was 'too hard' because it contained the question “How far do you agree that Hitler’s role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?”.
Their complaint isn't about it being a badly worded question despite 'despot' and 'tyrant' being somewhat tautologous, but because they actually didn't know what despot or tyrant actually meant. A facebook group to protest about the question ("Despotic tyranny ruined my life") has over 1,600 members which, when you consider that 6,000 people took the exam, suggests that a quarter or more of 18 year old history students - people with a self-declared interest in the subject, who might want to study history at university and then get a job presenting Time Team - have a vocabulary which didn't include what I would consider fairly basic governmental terms for pretty much the entirety of recorded human history.
I can see them now; the massed ranks of students in the exam hall, pens a-quiver and eager of neuron to display their hard-gained knowledge. Then, the words "Turn your papers over now". A rustling fills the room followed by...silence. There, spitefully inserted into an A-Level history question about Hitler, the word 'Despot'. Their formerly gleaming eyes dull into glazed incomprehension. As one, their mouths fall open like so many fish and thin trickles of drool begin to collect in their laps. Once-pristine knuckles sprout thick hair and slip to rest upon the ground.
I'm hardly the sharpest tool in the box (my academic record speaks for itself in its unremitting mediocrity) but if I hadn't known what a Despot was when I was 18, I wouldn't have joined groups to complain about it; I'd've kept it damn quiet. I'd've been embarrassed. Perhaps I'd've thought that this gap in my knowledge was at least in part my own responsibility. I didn't even study History to that level, and I think there was little chance of my being asked about the despotic tyranny of Hydrogen over the periodic table in my Chemistry final.
I know some of you lot out there are teachers - what the devil? Can you shed any light on this for me?
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cavalorn: Nice to see groups appearing expressing a contrary position.
Their complaint isn't about it being a badly worded question despite 'despot' and 'tyrant' being somewhat tautologous, but because they actually didn't know what despot or tyrant actually meant. A facebook group to protest about the question ("Despotic tyranny ruined my life") has over 1,600 members which, when you consider that 6,000 people took the exam, suggests that a quarter or more of 18 year old history students - people with a self-declared interest in the subject, who might want to study history at university and then get a job presenting Time Team - have a vocabulary which didn't include what I would consider fairly basic governmental terms for pretty much the entirety of recorded human history.
I can see them now; the massed ranks of students in the exam hall, pens a-quiver and eager of neuron to display their hard-gained knowledge. Then, the words "Turn your papers over now". A rustling fills the room followed by...silence. There, spitefully inserted into an A-Level history question about Hitler, the word 'Despot'. Their formerly gleaming eyes dull into glazed incomprehension. As one, their mouths fall open like so many fish and thin trickles of drool begin to collect in their laps. Once-pristine knuckles sprout thick hair and slip to rest upon the ground.
I'm hardly the sharpest tool in the box (my academic record speaks for itself in its unremitting mediocrity) but if I hadn't known what a Despot was when I was 18, I wouldn't have joined groups to complain about it; I'd've kept it damn quiet. I'd've been embarrassed. Perhaps I'd've thought that this gap in my knowledge was at least in part my own responsibility. I didn't even study History to that level, and I think there was little chance of my being asked about the despotic tyranny of Hydrogen over the periodic table in my Chemistry final.
I know some of you lot out there are teachers - what the devil? Can you shed any light on this for me?
Updated from
cavalorn: Nice to see groups appearing expressing a contrary position.
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Re: :p
Date: 2009-07-17 10:24 am (UTC)Re: :p
Date: 2009-07-17 10:25 am (UTC)Fuck, we're doomed :-(
Re: :p
Date: 2009-07-17 10:27 am (UTC)Re: :p
Date: 2009-07-17 12:13 pm (UTC)Also, the history teacher forum is astounding, in that it is filled with bad spelling and poor sentence construction;
"I feel desparately sorry for the students"
"most low ability A2 students would have stood very littler chance with that wording."
Cripes.
Re: :p
Date: 2009-07-17 12:17 pm (UTC)With state services, I've got no choice at all - if I happen to live in the catchment area for a crap school, well, that's my tough luck. I'll just have to keep paying to watch my kids getting a rotten education with no way out whatsoever.
Re: :p
Date: 2009-07-17 12:37 pm (UTC)"that poorly educated pupils are sitting poorly thought out exams which are then poorly marked."