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Just Get it Right

[ 5 minute read ]

Could and Should

Like many other Open University students, I recently received notification of the marks awarded for my latest attempt in a Tutor Marked Assignment. 

       'You could have included this and that.' To be entirely honest the feedback probably doesn't include the word 'could'. I made it very clear to my tutor that 'could' just means there were options and I didn't choose the right one to impress you. Yes, I 'could' have written about this or that, or not included this or the other, but I didn't. Why don't you just tell me why I 'should' have done something different? What different outcome would be achieved?

On a different learning platform, the students can offer tidbits of their writing (within the course criteria) and other students get to review it and make comments. You can't review anyone's work if you have not submitted your own. In other words, if you are not naked you can't look at the naked people on a nudist beach. You really shouldn't do that anyway. I wonder, do people who follow fashion (clothes and accessories) go to nudist beaches?

So, it is about how exposed we will allow ourselves to be, that helps us hone our ideas into a format which we are happy to then share. That is the drive in conformity, isn't it? Yet, many of us are afraid that someone will publicly aberrate our intentions; not like an enabler does, more like a deliberate desire to twist our words; to make our words and actions ridiculous. 

Often, we don't have the support we want in times like these. I told my tutor not to tell me what I have done right in my Tutor Marked Assignments because I don't want to change those bits. 

       'Just focus on what I did wrong.' I pleaded. Yes, you can guess what the response to that might be..'There is no.....' Not at all helpful. I am not five.

So, like a tight-rope walker, I expose myself to risk and have no safety net to catch me. If the feedback says. 'It is utter rubbish!' There are no words of encouragement to save me. '[...] but you write well.' Great! I am really good at writing rubbish. It is really easy to be misunderstood if we rush writing a review or even get the words in the wrong order. At the beginning of my TMA feedback my tutor put 'You write well' at the very beginning. Exactly the right place for it to avoid it being a consolation. How many times have we thought in a heated argument that the other person is just putting words in our mouth? It is, however, a tactic, a poor one that is easily disrupted or beaten, but it is a tactic, even if it is to wound or discombobulate someone with an opposing thought, idea or concept.

I had a couple of reviews to write yesterday evening on an online learning platform. There doesn't seem to be a lot of people on our course, but I am only going by how many people contribute in the little comment boxes and submit assignments in the course. There 'could' be hundreds and there should be. I skipped writing reviews on two other assignment contributor's work for two reasons:

1) The first was way better than I might do, and I had already written a comment on making sure that we are up to the task of being honest, impartial and accurate. I was tired and felt that I would not be able to do the writer's piece justice with my review. Maybe someone without a conscience will review it. The philosopher Immanuel Kant would be staring at me right now. 'Did you not understand what I meant by duty? If you think that someone else will give a mean or sharp review, it is your duty to try as hard as you can and put as much effort as you can muster to review that piece!' 

2) The second one was written by someone whose work I had already critiqued as a review to an earlier assignment. I felt it would be best if she got a different person's opinion this time. My opinion may be fundamentally flawed AND I may not be in her target market.

The problem I can't overcome is not knowing if their work has already been critiqued. Most people will offer thanks to the reviewer in later posts. If they don't do this, I am compelled to keep reviewing assignments until I have reviewed four or five, because there is a possibility that someone's assignment never gets a peer review. 

I can't bear the thought that someone is sad because they think they were ignored or overlooked. When we offer our hard work we are, of course, looking for praise and wonderment. It really is disappointing if no-one hears our voice. To me, it is not too far off a cry for help; 'Help me. I need encouragement!' Feeble and pathetic it is not! 

       'Am I doing what I need to do to conform? The world and your opinion is so important to me!' That is it pretty much laid out bare; but with my ruthlessness, I am able to completely smash that sentiment as having come from a weak person. Some people may hold the cry for approbation as weak because they harbour an idea of success that is driven by a need for them being in control, power and money. Indeed, this is what satiates them. Realistically, I can't help feeling that many people over-achieve in order that they are not considered by other entities to be weak or feeble or stupid; even when other entities don't care. Paradoxically, I suggest, they are both insecure and weak. Weak? How so?

I think, sometimes we forget that the most important thing in our lives is to just get it right without cheating, and the second most important thing is to show that we know how to get it right. 

I don't seek a degree to show it to people. I am doing a degree because I need to know stuff to just 'get it right.'