I was asked about grades and assement by a collegue, in particular why the students state their grades for the assessment review.
In tech-CAD the students decide on their grades, if they dont achieve the level that they have determimned I let them know (their peers are also supposed to do this but the development of intellectual debate throughout the ID Community is still in its infancy). The students can:
a/ change their grade
b/ change their work(fix the shortfall)
the student is responsible for their learning. If they want to know what I think, then i show them the courtesy of sharing my honest appraisal and rationale of the project they provide.
I dont tell students im right and they're wrong. I try to help them to see the issues in their projects. It is confronting for them and sometimes they are quite resistant, however i keep tabs on them, after a couple of projects they are starting to be critical and learn for themselves.
I am not a repository of knowledge, generally these students are attempting things i havent done. in fact im just a concience that keeps nagging them about things they know and wont confront or im making them aware of things they havent discovered. The technical process is their skills development, the critical thinking and reflection will help them to assess and improve their projects and practice.

On thursday the students ran the whole show. they are getting much better at their assement and their ability to express their ideas, i put this down to blogging. they spleen vent an then can start looking at the real issues. The problem with electives is we have 3-4th years who are reluctant to change their ideology about grades and expect to get points for effort and trying. These things will get them a Pass and a pass is a good mark. The issue is siome students think that a lot of effort equals a HD(100%) . HD is for effort and intellect and demonstration of achievemnet and understandinhg the ' project failures' along teh way.

Many students are too tender to take critical feedback. Many will always repeat the speach about effort, time and bleat on about encouragment. basically they will be fucked in the real world because they never faced it at Uni. they never took the risk and owned a complete screw up so they dont know what to do when it happens. If our community is to be robust then every one of us will have to bare all and realise our falibility and insignificance. after this you just work and you do it for yourself not some arbitrary acknowledgement by teachers and peers.

So after a ten hour flight i arrived in Hong Kong, to be greeed by a frantic Dragon Air staff guy, he informed me they were boarding immediately. he led me down through the surging crowd, overtaking teh travelator set, skipping past the long lines of people at security checks to be wisked through with a cursory glance. on the second level we overtook geriatric and overladen travels with ease. when suddenly i realised i had left my cardboard tube fall of posters on teh previous flight. My shaparone went into convulsions, he jumped on the mobile and the troops were mustered to correct my error. At this point i also realised we had taken a u-turn and were headed back towards the plane id just been on.
As it happens the 2 Km excursion brought me back to the aircraft parked next to the one i just got off. My shaparone had the cardboard roll in my hand 5 minutes later. However my luggage i took seperate flights to beijing, due to my delayed flight.
i know it sounds tedious but it was quite thrilling to jump from one flight to another with a quick anadrenaline rush and the uncertainty of ever seeing my underware again.

The second thrill was in the questionmark over my accomodation. some administartive loose ends turned out to be non-ends. But the women on teh desk sorted me out with a small room and 2 double beds, cosy. At this point error number 3 came to light. my independently travelling bag had arrived withits locks intact, i arrived witout keys...
The concierge in this hotel is a dab hand with some improvised tools and a liitle grunt. 2 locks 'dislodged', undies arrived safely.

So now i just have to do this convention, find my collegues and get something to eat... in chinese... how hard could it be?