Marking, confronted and fine Harvard minds

MARKING

Shhh… go away… I’m marking….not meant to be here…you didn’t see me …

CONFRONTED

My first semester marking student assignments is confronting. By the end of next semester I should have a lot of tricks and shortcuts, but at the moment I am still learning where the corners are in this job, let alone when and how they can be cut. Marking is making me look very hard at:

• my own ethics
• my own writing style
• my preconceived opinions
• how I manage my time
• what I believe students deserve in terms of my attention and time
• what I believe is authoritative information
• what I think students need to know – both information and as skills in communication
• what the profession is likely to want from students
• and what the university is likely to expect of me

HARVARD

Now, when the minifigs visited Harvard University last year, they did not see Mark Zuckerburg, founder of Facebook. He had moved on by then, and they were looking at minifig concerns like tiny doors and Sesame Street sweatshirts.

But – if you want some intellectual stimulation from two of the Harvard minds that I admire most, please get yourself a cuppa, pull up an easy chair and take some time of sheer pleasure to enjoy the lucidity and careful writing of Lawrence Lessig and Zadie Smith .

In an interesting pastiche of popular culture, web culture and careful consideration about knowledge-making, both have independently written reviews of Alan Sorkin’s The Social Network movie about Facebook . They both were at Harvard in those years and are reflecting on this and much more.

Ever cutting and subtle, Lessig starts with:

In 2004, a Harvard undergraduate got an idea (yes, that is ambiguous) for a new kind of social network.

…and continues in the same vein.

Zadie Smith ends with:

…The Social Network is not a cruel portrait of any particular real-world person called “Mark Zuckerberg.” It’s a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore.

…and between the two of them there is much richness and delight to be had…

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