Ninety Nine Bad Things
... or "Who's got the list?"
- People who think that continuous assessment is invariably a
good thing.
It isn't. Continuous assessment is a system whereby even the doziest
student can pass if they trudge along valiantly and display not one
ounce of applied intelligence. While this may be great for the next
generation of Job Centre staff, it is of little worth in the real world.
Would you rather have the slow-but-sure plodder thinking inside the box
or would you rather have an innovator who won't turn to jelly when put
under real pressure? I thought so.
- The assumption that every noun has a corresponding verb and
vice-versa. Yes, I'm looking at you, marketing guys!
- Tennis commentators (and summarisers and analysts and ...) who seem
to think that one tournament is a Grand Slam. It isn't. A Grand Slam in
tennis is to win all the four majors in the same discipline in the same
calendar year. Call the individual tournaments "majors" if you wish -
that's fine, but stop diminishing the Grand Slam. What the hell are you
going to call it when someone (Nadal, Federer?) finally achieves it?