The Revelation

A review of the assessment in The Return, simply because there's something else I want to talk about, but it wouldn't be fair to proceed without addressing how that went, especially considering the deluge of response I received.

This task scared the Bieber out of the students. It forced them to go in front of other students without notes and improvise. And in some cases, they had to put up with (non-serious) abuse.

I learnt, or was reminded of, a couple of things:

1) Often, it's the quiet ones who shine in talks where they don't need to be themselves, and it's often the loudmouths who do the most poorly. (I have a slight bit of smug satisfaction when I see that.)

2) The biggest problem students (or at least the ones at my school) have with new tasks is not the fact that they're new to the students: it's the fact that students refuse to read the friggin instructions!

3) These teenagers have no idea about politics. They know about "The Ranga", "the old guy with the eyebrows", and that's about it. They have no idea about Question Time, Door Stops, Right Wing vs Left Wing, extreme vs moderate, what tax avoidance is, or why it's bad for a politician to be caught cheating on their spouse.

4) But they all know what a bunga bunga party is.

Overall, it worked. It was far less boring than a normal talk or a panel discussion.