Racism Part two

[Stevo985]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Still happy with it?

 

Just to be clear, I never said or suggested I was happy with it. All I said was that she did see a problem with it.

Your post I replied to kind of implied she was still fine with it. The apology told me she saw the problem with it.

 

The sincerity of that apology is obviously up for debate. 

 

Edit: re-reading your OP I can see you clearly meant if she didn't see a problem with it before she distributed the original leaflet. Which is absolutely fair enough. I read it as she still didn't see a problem with it, which is an argument you weren't making. Apologies.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Stevo985

[Xela]

I will also admit I didn't know the full meaning of the word incursion. I also assumed it just meant trespassing or something like that.

However if I was delivering literature from a political party, I would have checked first to be sure. 

[chrisp65]

And the ‘happy with it’ wasn’t aimed at you @Stevo985 it was meant to be a generalised throw away. It wasn’t personalised.

I think we’ve probably all come around to being in a broadly similar place.

[Stevo985]

3 minutes ago, Xela said:

I will also admit I didn't know the full meaning of the word incursion. I also assumed it just meant trespassing or something like that.

However if I was delivering literature from a political party, I would have checked first to be sure. 

Yeah basically where I'm at in a nutshell.

[Chindie]

Not a good look for a shadow equalities minster to be banging the drum against an ethnic group.

And it's only because it's been noticed and amplified it's been apologised for. It got approved, printed and distributed - they were perfectly happy to be issuing leaflets that suggested they should 'deal with' a people. Nice racist dogwhistle.

People have been pilloried for less.

[markavfc40]

I see the ex ITV news reader Alastair Stewart, who called a black political campaigner an angry ape, is joining the soon to be launched right wing news channel GB news. No real surprise there then as he'll fit right in. 

Edited April 2, 2021 by markavfc40

[Follyfoot]

9 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

I see the ex ITV news reader Alastair Stewart, who called a black political campaigner an angry ape, is joining the soon to be launched right wing news channel GB news. No real surprise there then as he'll fit right in. 

I honestly thought he was dead

[HanoiVillan]

From the BBCs Phil obituary:

'He certainly gained a reputation for misjudging situations, particularly when he was abroad.

He made one of his most controversial comments while accompanying the Queen on a state visit to China in 1986. He made what he thought was a private remark about "slitty eyes".

The tabloids went into a frenzy, although it seemed to cause little concern in China.

On a visit to Australia in 2002, he asked an Aboriginal businessman whether "you still throw spears at each other".

While he was heavily criticised in some quarters for such remarks, others saw them as reflecting someone who was his own man and who had refused to become bound by political correctness.

Indeed, many saw his so-called "gaffes" as nothing more than an attempt to lighten the atmosphere and put people at their ease.'

from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10224525

Is that really enough? He 'had refused to become bound by political correctness.' Even 'his sense of humour was of its time' would have been better. Nobody's saying it's like joining the BNP, or that it needs to be the only or even the main thing to address about his legacy, but for the state broadcaster to just brush away this part of his legacy with such feeble comments, is . . . I dunno, I feel like it's not great to be honest.

[Davkaus]

Full article behind a paywall, but **** me....

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/its-elitist-to-mark-down-bad-spelling-universities-insist-bmw5j2jlfhttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/its-elitist-to-mark-down-bad-spelling-universities-insist-bmw5j2jlf

Quote

University tutors are being told not to dock marks for spelling mistakes because requiring good English could be seen as “homogenous north European, white, male, elite”.

Several universities are adopting “inclusive assessments” as part of an effort to narrow the attainment gap between white and black, Asian and minority ethnic students and to reduce higher dropout rates among those from poorer backgrounds.

Hull University has said it will “challenge the status quo” by dropping the requirement for a high level of technical proficiency in written and spoken English in some subjects, a requirement it described as white, male and elite.

 

[villa4europe]

just reduce the number of points that can be docked, i thought it was pretty standard to be capped at around 5% and that was from GCSEs right through to degree level, it has hardly any impact, from my experience of university your ability reference your documents was weighted far heavier than your spelling and grammar (tbf at times it felt like my ability to reference properly outweighed the actual content of my work, i could say grass is yellow as long as i referenced it properly)

its not spelling that's causing those kids to drop out

[bannedfromHandV]

Yeah it’s not like being able to read and write correctly is important or anything.........F this world, it’s shit.

[HanoiVillan]

I would strongly recommend reading the actual policy, rather than the right-wing media culture war spin as advanced by The Times. You can do so here: https://www.hull.ac.uk/choose-hull/study-at-hull/teaching-academy/news/introducing-the-university-of-hulls-inclusive-assessment-marking-and-feedback-policy

The bit that matters is here:

'This approach will reduce the need to make reasonable adjustments on a case by case basis a is in keeping with the guidance given by the Office for the Independent Adjudicator (2019) on removing obstacles to learning, institutes our commitment to decolonising curricula and reducing the attainment gap. It can be argued constructing an academic voice means adopting a homogenous North European, white, male, elite mode of expression dependent on a high level of technical proficiency in written and spoken English, a mode of expression that obscures the students’ particularity. The University of Hull will now challenge this status quo. Our learning community will encourage students to develop a more authentic academic voice, a voice that can communicate complex ideas with rigour and integrity – that celebrates, rather than obscures their particular background or characteristics.

Previously, students for whom English is a second or non-native language, with a disability or long-term health condition, or educated at ‘poorly performing’ school may have been discouraged or disadvantaged when technical proficiency in written English is assessed. However, some disciplines need such proficiency. To balance our inclusive approach with academic standards we must commit to only assessing the learning outcomes/competencies that are set out in QAA subject level benchmarks or stipulated by Professional, Scholarly or Research Bodies (PSRB). In practice, this means making an assertive commitment to aligning benchmarks/PSRB stipulations with module learning outcomes, assessment briefs and marking practices.'

There's a lot here, but to break it down:

• Normally at universities, a student with dyslexia or another learning difficulty will be given 'reasonable adjustments', which usually means either extra time to complete assessments (especially exams), or a lower threshold in marking criteria where that criteria is affected by their learning difficulty. This makes sense, as it is obviously unfair to hold a dyslexic student to the same standard in spelling that you would hold someone without dyslexia to, especially if it is not relevant to their domain knowledge.
• However, 'reasonable adjustments' have their own flaws, such as being stigmatising.
• Similarly, many students nowadays come from other countries where English is not the first language, especially from China. What happens to these students is usually that they do a 'foundation year', in which they are taught to write in 'academic English'. Essentially, they are taught about essay structure, avoiding first-person pronoun use, the principles of hedging and academic modesty, and how to reference the ideas of other writers in a way that maintains academic integrity. Most students pass this year - universities need their money, after all - but some do not.
• It is clearly true that some of these skills are more important for some disciplines than others. If you're going to join the English or Education departments, and writing essays is going to be a regular occurence throughout your time at university, then yes, you need to be able to write an academic essay that conforms to the likely expectations of your future tutors. If you're going on to study IT or pure maths, then maybe not so much.
• Universities can deal with this in different ways. At my university, we deal with this by having a higher post-foundation entrance scores for students entering arts, business or social sciences courses than for students entering science or engineering courses. Hull are taking a slightly different approach, announced in this policy, of deprioritising assessing certain 'academic English writing' skills for some subjects, so rather than holding sciences students to a lower standard, they might just not consider spelling as a criteria for some assessments.
• It is not obvious to me that this is the wrong approach. It is perfectly possible for a Chinese student, or a dyslexic English student, to have excellent domain knowledge in one area, but be bad at mastering the formal aspects of academic essay writing. Universities have to decide whether they want to risk losing such students, through having them fail tests that may not be particularly relevant to their subject area.
• Separately, because universities are generally keen to be seen as 'woke' spaces, they have decided to advertise this basically reasonable decision as being about 'decolonising the curriculum'. This is an attempt to persuade students that the university are a right-on organisation who take social justice seriously. However, advertising a policy in this way obviously carries with it the risk of attracting the attention of bad-faith right-wing arseholes, and lo and behold, here we are.

[Ingram85]

Couldn’t we let foreign students write in their own language so they feel confident and comfortable to create and explain what they mean better and then the universities employ a team to or pay for a service where those essays are translated? Could help make an international world a lot easier (he says unironically in present day post brexit England). 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Ingram85

[lapal_fan]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I would strongly recommend reading the actual policy, rather than the right-wing media culture war spin as advanced by The Times. You can do so here: https://www.hull.ac.uk/choose-hull/study-at-hull/teaching-academy/news/introducing-the-university-of-hulls-inclusive-assessment-marking-and-feedback-policy

The bit that matters is here:

'This approach will reduce the need to make reasonable adjustments on a case by case basis a is in keeping with the guidance given by the Office for the Independent Adjudicator (2019) on removing obstacles to learning, institutes our commitment to decolonising curricula and reducing the attainment gap. It can be argued constructing an academic voice means adopting a homogenous North European, white, male, elite mode of expression dependent on a high level of technical proficiency in written and spoken English, a mode of expression that obscures the students’ particularity. The University of Hull will now challenge this status quo. Our learning community will encourage students to develop a more authentic academic voice, a voice that can communicate complex ideas with rigour and integrity – that celebrates, rather than obscures their particular background or characteristics.

Previously, students for whom English is a second or non-native language, with a disability or long-term health condition, or educated at ‘poorly performing’ school may have been discouraged or disadvantaged when technical proficiency in written English is assessed. However, some disciplines need such proficiency. To balance our inclusive approach with academic standards we must commit to only assessing the learning outcomes/competencies that are set out in QAA subject level benchmarks or stipulated by Professional, Scholarly or Research Bodies (PSRB). In practice, this means making an assertive commitment to aligning benchmarks/PSRB stipulations with module learning outcomes, assessment briefs and marking practices.'

There's a lot here, but to break it down:

• Normally at universities, a student with dyslexia or another learning difficulty will be given 'reasonable adjustments', which usually means either extra time to complete assessments (especially exams), or a lower threshold in marking criteria where that criteria is affected by their learning difficulty. This makes sense, as it is obviously unfair to hold a dyslexic student to the same standard in spelling that you would hold someone without dyslexia to, especially if it is not relevant to their domain knowledge.
• However, 'reasonable adjustments' have their own flaws, such as being stigmatising.
• Similarly, many students nowadays come from other countries where English is not the first language, especially from China. What happens to these students is usually that they do a 'foundation year', in which they are taught to write in 'academic English'. Essentially, they are taught about essay structure, avoiding first-person pronoun use, the principles of hedging and academic modesty, and how to reference the ideas of other writers in a way that maintains academic integrity. Most students pass this year - universities need their money, after all - but some do not.
• It is clearly true that some of these skills are more important for some disciplines than others. If you're going to join the English or Education departments, and writing essays is going to be a regular occurence throughout your time at university, then yes, you need to be able to write an academic essay that conforms to the likely expectations of your future tutors. If you're going on to study IT or pure maths, then maybe not so much.
• Universities can deal with this in different ways. At my university, we deal with this by having a higher post-foundation entrance scores for students entering arts, business or social sciences courses than for students entering science or engineering courses. Hull are taking a slightly different approach, announced in this policy, of deprioritising assessing certain 'academic English writing' skills for some subjects, so rather than holding sciences students to a lower standard, they might just not consider spelling as a criteria for some assessments.
• It is not obvious to me that this is the wrong approach. It is perfectly possible for a Chinese student, or a dyslexic English student, to have excellent domain knowledge in one area, but be bad at mastering the formal aspects of academic essay writing. Universities have to decide whether they want to risk losing such students, through having them fail tests that may not be particularly relevant to their subject area.
• Separately, because universities are generally keen to be seen as 'woke' spaces, they have decided to advertise this basically reasonable decision as being about 'decolonising the curriculum'. This is an attempt to persuade students that the university are a right-on organisation who take social justice seriously. However, advertising a policy in this way obviously carries with it the risk of attracting the attention of bad-faith right-wing arseholes, and lo and behold, here we are.

defo didn't read! 

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

defo didn't read! 

No less than I deserved, to be fair (I was wondering why it had taken you so long!)

49 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Couldn’t we let foreign students to write in their own language so they feel confident and comfortable to create and explain what they mean better and then the universities employ a team to or pay for a service where those essays are translated? Could help make an international world a lot easier (he says I ironically in present day post brexit England). 

It's a nice idea, but I think it has a lot of practical problems, not the least of which is that universities would have almost no chance of catching plagiarism.

[lapal_fan]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

No less than I deserved, to be fair (I was wondering why it had taken you so long!)

It's a nice idea, but I think it has a lot of practical problems, not the least of which is that universities would have almost no chance of catching plagiarism.

Was gonna quote you with a "why I oughta!!" gif, but y'know.. effort n'that  

[Follyfoot]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I would strongly recommend reading the actual policy, rather than the right-wing media culture war spin as advanced by The Times. You can do so here: https://www.hull.ac.uk/choose-hull/study-at-hull/teaching-academy/news/introducing-the-university-of-hulls-inclusive-assessment-marking-and-feedback-policy

The bit that matters is here:

'This approach will reduce the need to make reasonable adjustments on a case by case basis a is in keeping with the guidance given by the Office for the Independent Adjudicator (2019) on removing obstacles to learning, institutes our commitment to decolonising curricula and reducing the attainment gap. It can be argued constructing an academic voice means adopting a homogenous North European, white, male, elite mode of expression dependent on a high level of technical proficiency in written and spoken English, a mode of expression that obscures the students’ particularity. The University of Hull will now challenge this status quo. Our learning community will encourage students to develop a more authentic academic voice, a voice that can communicate complex ideas with rigour and integrity – that celebrates, rather than obscures their particular background or characteristics.

Previously, students for whom English is a second or non-native language, with a disability or long-term health condition, or educated at ‘poorly performing’ school may have been discouraged or disadvantaged when technical proficiency in written English is assessed. However, some disciplines need such proficiency. To balance our inclusive approach with academic standards we must commit to only assessing the learning outcomes/competencies that are set out in QAA subject level benchmarks or stipulated by Professional, Scholarly or Research Bodies (PSRB). In practice, this means making an assertive commitment to aligning benchmarks/PSRB stipulations with module learning outcomes, assessment briefs and marking practices.'

There's a lot here, but to break it down:

• Normally at universities, a student with dyslexia or another learning difficulty will be given 'reasonable adjustments', which usually means either extra time to complete assessments (especially exams), or a lower threshold in marking criteria where that criteria is affected by their learning difficulty. This makes sense, as it is obviously unfair to hold a dyslexic student to the same standard in spelling that you would hold someone without dyslexia to, especially if it is not relevant to their domain knowledge.
• However, 'reasonable adjustments' have their own flaws, such as being stigmatising.
• Similarly, many students nowadays come from other countries where English is not the first language, especially from China. What happens to these students is usually that they do a 'foundation year', in which they are taught to write in 'academic English'. Essentially, they are taught about essay structure, avoiding first-person pronoun use, the principles of hedging and academic modesty, and how to reference the ideas of other writers in a way that maintains academic integrity. Most students pass this year - universities need their money, after all - but some do not.
• It is clearly true that some of these skills are more important for some disciplines than others. If you're going to join the English or Education departments, and writing essays is going to be a regular occurence throughout your time at university, then yes, you need to be able to write an academic essay that conforms to the likely expectations of your future tutors. If you're going on to study IT or pure maths, then maybe not so much.
• Universities can deal with this in different ways. At my university, we deal with this by having a higher post-foundation entrance scores for students entering arts, business or social sciences courses than for students entering science or engineering courses. Hull are taking a slightly different approach, announced in this policy, of deprioritising assessing certain 'academic English writing' skills for some subjects, so rather than holding sciences students to a lower standard, they might just not consider spelling as a criteria for some assessments.
• It is not obvious to me that this is the wrong approach. It is perfectly possible for a Chinese student, or a dyslexic English student, to have excellent domain knowledge in one area, but be bad at mastering the formal aspects of academic essay writing. Universities have to decide whether they want to risk losing such students, through having them fail tests that may not be particularly relevant to their subject area.
• Separately, because universities are generally keen to be seen as 'woke' spaces, they have decided to advertise this basically reasonable decision as being about 'decolonising the curriculum'. This is an attempt to persuade students that the university are a right-on organisation who take social justice seriously. However, advertising a policy in this way obviously carries with it the risk of attracting the attention of bad-faith right-wing arseholes, and lo and behold, here we are.

To save me reading this, does it basically say 'they took our jobs' 

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, Follyfoot said:

To save me reading this, does it basically say 'they took our jobs' 

Just read the bit that says 'HanoiVillan is right about this and all other things'.

[Follyfoot]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

Just read the bit that says 'HanoiVillan is right about this and all other things'.

never in doubt 

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, Follyfoot said:

never in doubt