Gimlé

I’m working hard at not being a nasty bastard.

The problem being partially that I forget that people don’t have three inch thick skin when I give them feedback on the projects.

That part is something I can work on (and have been). Sitting down, listening and thinking about what it is that the student or researcher is working on and then giving them feedback that you hope will help them do their thing better.

Never tell them what you think they should be doing instead. Support people, don’t slate them.

Which is something I still forget sometimes, being an opinionated bastard at heart.

In this context it doesn’t matter whether I’m right or wrong or simply grumpy as hell—of course, being me, I tend to think that I’m right—what matters is that that sort of snide attitude is misguided.

But there is a larger problem here as well.

The name of the course I’m “teach assistin’” on used to be “Narrative and New Media,” a name that in my opinion highlights the course’s continued primary emphasis in a much clearer way than “Communications Media (Interactive Media)” does.

This is especially important because the course description is wooly as hell, suffused with market-speak and catch-phrase mumbo-jumbo—

The alternative being nonsensical, academic mumbo-jumbo, which would probably be just as lacking in content.

So when the brief is unclear everybody interprets the brief according to their own individual tastes.

I’m a comp. lit. storytelling kinda guy, so I interpret the brief with a narrative slant to it.

And I know that others working on the course have their alternative, differing interpretations and teach/advise/support according to that particular interpretation.

So when I let out a nasty comment, criticising a project for being ‘a toy’ that is not only wrong in the sense of breaking the ‘support, don’t slate’ rule but it’s also a misguided, nasty comment based on my particular interpretation of the course brief.

Even if I had been right (which I’m not so sure I was) then the problem lies in the clarity (or lack thereof) in the module’s project brief rather than any shortcoming of the students’ part. Most of them fulfilled the set brief excellently, with skill.

The fact that only about two projects did the “let’s say something, tell a story” thing did annoy me.

But that’s just me being a pompous arse following my particular agenda.

The difference between me and most other people working in academia (present company excepted) is that I acknowledge that I have an agenda and am not in favour of letting it affect my teaching or project feedback.

So, my bad.

I’d still like to give the course more of a storytelling/narrative slant, but the way to do that is not by hammering the students with your grumpy comments, but to pull/push the other teachers on the course in that direction.

Oh, well. Live and learn. And apologize.

Baldur Bjarnason.
Clifton, Bristol.