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Sunday 12 June 2022

COW2022: Deadline for bookings

Tomorrow (13thy June) will be the deadline for all Conference of Wargamers 2022 (COW2022) to have booked and paid for their places.

As you can imagine, as I am the Membership Secretary and Treasurer (A post I have held since 1980!), the next couple of days could see me spending quite a bit of time in front of my computer processing last minute bookings and payments ... and wondering if herding cats might have been an easier task!

I don't know what it is about some wargamers, but a small minority of them seem to live in a very otherworldly place where deadlines are vague or notional or don't apply to them, and if other people are inconvenienced ... well, that's not their problem.

I used to experience the same sort of thing with some of my students when it came to deadlines for work to be handed in ... and the reaction they had to the sudden impact of them 'hitting' the reality wall was – to say the least – interesting. I once remember a student handing in a piece of coursework that I had repeatedly asked them for two weeks after the deadline for the grade to be sent to the examination board. The conversation went something like this:

Student: 'Here's the coursework you've kept asking me for.'

Me: 'Thank you, but its too late and you have failed this part of the course.'

Student: 'But you haven't even looked at it!'

Me: 'The deadline for it to be marked and the grade to be sent to the exam board was two weeks ago. You failed to meet the deadline ... so you've failed.'

Student: 'That's not fair! I've done the work ... and I want you to mark it.'

Me: 'There's no point. You've missed the deadline ... the deadline I repeatedly reminded you about every time that I saw you up until two weeks ago. I stopped mentioning it then because you hadn't given me the work and the deadline had passed.'

Student: 'I'm going to the Principal to complain! You have no right to refuse to mark my work and to fail me!'

Me: 'Please do. Then when she explains to you that you have failed because of your own stupidity ...'

Student (shouting): 'You can't call me stupid! That's offensive!'

Me: 'Well, what can I call you that isn't offensive? There is no one to blame for this except you. You failed to meet the deadline, hence you failed to complete the coursework on time ... and you failed this part of the course.'

Student (as they go out of the office door): 'I'm going off to complain about you ... NOW!'

Needless to say, the Principal listened to the student, summoned me into her office to hear my side of the story, and eventually had to admit that I was right, and the student was wrong. I was, however, told off for using the word stupid to describe the student's actions! It was deemed to be offensive ... but when asked, the Principal could come up with an alternative word that I could have used.

The matter did not, however, end there. The student's parents contacted the Chair of Governors and made a formal complaint. This was 'investigated' and I was eventually exonerated for doing my job properly ... and although I've been retired nearly seven years, people still ask me if I miss teaching! Certainly not this aspect of it!

12 comments:

  1. Been there done that, I have had a student not turn up to take an exam that would determine if they had a career in the Royal Navy complain that I should have passed them as it was my job🤣. Excellent blog, keep up the good work.

    Willz.

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    1. Tiberian general (Willz),

      I suspect that this is not an uncommon story in our new, ‘entitled’ age. How many times have I heard ‘It’s your job to make sure that I …’ or a variant thereof? Too many times!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  2. Interesting story. The crass stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me. I often wonder how they get by in life and it is often the theoretically clever ones who demonstrate the greatest allocation of stupidity. Part of my job included interviewing graduates for direct entry to our business in junior management positions. Some were very bright and did well. Others I would not trust with a broom. People are really funny creatures !!!! Regards.

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    1. Tony Adams,

      One of the problems I can across with graduate entry recruits was the assumption that they would go straight into management positions without (to use an old Army expression) getting their knees brown.

      At one point in my career I was trying to promote what is now called the Modern Apprenticeship. In conversation with one of the heads of the HR/Recruitment department of a major High Street bank, I suggested that they take on some Modern Apprentices. They assured me that their graduate recruitment scheme worked well enough for them, but when I challenged them as to how many graduate recruits were still employed by them after twelve months, they went rather quiet, it turned out that they had a nearly 90% dropout rate.

      They agreed to take on some Modern Apprentices … and a year later they told me that the apprentices were outperforming the graduates because they were more grounded, didn’t have inflated ideas about their own abilities, and were more productive. After that, the bank became far more choosy about the graduates they recruited, and began training them alongside their apprentices.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  3. Bob,
    An amusing story, yet also a sad example of how students are not developing attitudes and habits that will fit them for the world of work.
    In my own case, I must confess that one of the reasons I became a teacher after deciding the law (my degree subject) was not the career for me was it was the only profession that offered holidays nearly as long as those I had enjoyed at university. Vacation, rather than vocation!
    Although I was never paid £250 or more per hour for talking to my clients/pupils, I've never regretted that decision, as I was able to base many of my history lessons around battles and campaigns that interested me!
    Best wishes,
    Arthur

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    Replies
    1. Arthur1815 (Arthur),

      We all go into teaching for different reasons. In my case, it was boredom. I had a well paid job at Coutts, but the work was deadly boring, and I was persuaded that teaching was a better career … and the rest is history.

      The problem of ‘entitled’ students was getting worse as I moved towards the end of my career. They expected everything to be given them on a plate, and that the amount of effort they had to put in to achieve success would only need to be minimal. They attitude to work had never been challenged … and by the time they were eighteen, it was too late for them to change.

      All the best,

      Bob

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  4. BOB,
    In all my Schooling and University dealings I never missed an Assignment...however, one day I placed my completed Assignment (Physics Workbook) in the Lecturer's 'Pigeon Hole' outside the Office- as I normally did. Later that day I returned to collect my Assignment -to add some more detail- the Assignment was completely gone...I knocked on the Lecturers Door and asked if I could please have my Assignment back....the Lecturer said he hadn't collected it at all...and discovered the Assignment was missing- the Lecturer said he'd look into it....now for the good bit: I found out later from the Lecturer that fellow students were helping themselves to my assignments- copying my home work word for word and actually not doing the work themselves....The Lecturer waved my participation in the 'Physics Course' and gave me a fine result for the Unit. What worried me...the 'Cheating Students' were training to be High School Teachers....worrying thoughts. Cheers. KEV.

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    1. Kev Robertson (Kev),

      I always insisted that assignments etc., be given to me, and not left on my desk or in my pigeon hole. That way I knew that I had had it, as I ticked it off in my register when it was handed to me.

      I’ve come across students plagiarising other people’s work, but never a fellow students. In one instance, a whole section from something they had found on Google was pasted into an assignment … including the hot links! When challenged, the student replied that it was permitted as they were quoting from a published work! Needless to say, it was not accepted and the assignment had to be resubmitted.

      In my experience, teachers are not above copying other people’s work wholesale. Whilst I was working as a temporary contract teacher in a secondary school, I once found out that a senior member of staff had asked the head IT technician to copy my work files onto a CD as he wanted to give all my lesson plans, resources, and assessment assignments to a teacher he was friendly who was going to teach the same course at another school.

      The technician queried it with me, and when I said that I hadn’t given permission for my work to be copied, he refused the request. He was the ordered to hand it over under threat of disciplinary action being taken against him. He refused again … and I then told the senior member of staff I was going to report him. I did … and got no support from the headteacher.

      I resigned … and took all my work etc., with me. The school then threatened me with legal action as I had ‘stolen’ resources that I had written for them. I had great pleasure in pointing out to their solicitor that my contact specifically mentioned that I retained all intellectual property rights as I was a contractor and not a full time member of the school’s staff. They back off … and I later found out that the senior member of staff who tried to ‘steal’ my work was sacked for incompetence and barely avoided prosecution for misconduct in public office.

      All the best,

      Bob

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    2. Bob,
      Many years ago I used to produce illustrations of troops and battle maps for my pupils to colour in (I'd pin a coloured version up for them to copy) to enliven their History notebooks. I gave copies as a favour to one of my colleagues who taught a parallel class. Shortly afterwards I was told by one of his pupils, "Mr T---- does great drawings of soldiers for us."

      I can't be certain that he was passing my work off as his own, but he certainly wasn't explaining who had produced them. Thereafter, I put AHdelt. plus the year prominently underneath the main figure on each sheet.

      You were fortunate to have that term in your contract! Was that your idea? Had the school not noticed it and just assumed (not unreasonably, perhaps) that anything you produced as part of your service there was governed by the same terms and conditions as that of permanent staff?

      I suppose the increased use of computers to store lesson plans &c. has made it much easier to keep track on what members of staff produce, whereas there was no record of my worksheets.

      One of my fellow volunteers at Cats Protection once worked for Games Workshop, who claimed ownership of ANYTHING their employees produced, even if it was not related to their products. Since he was trying to establish himself as a freelance author/illustrator, he quit.

      Best wishes,
      Arthur

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    3. Arthur1815 (Arthur),

      I never objected to my colleagues using resources that I had created, just as long as they acknowledged the fact and it was a reciprocal arrangement.

      I wrote the contract myself (and used the same one for all my other employees), in the knowledge that the person who signed it would either not read it properly or would not realise the implications of that clause.

      Incidentally, years ago I was asked (and paid) to write a computer program to help sixth form tutors write their half-termly student progress reports, Because I was paid specifically for this project, the school retained the intellectual property rights. Imagine my surprise when I moved to another sixth form college and was introduced during my induction to their reporting system … which was mine but with a different institution’s name at the top.

      I discovered that having paid for a system that worked, my original employer had sold it to other institutions. (When I said this to their Principal, he poo pooed the idea … until I showed him a line of code in the program I had included which had my name in it!)

      Games Workshop are notorious for being litigious with regard to what they regard as ‘their’ intellectual property rights. They even tried to stop someone from using the term Space Marine in a non-GW book … only to find that it had been used many years beforehand and that they could not copyright the term.

      All the best,

      Bob

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  5. As the school year comes to a close I've had to aggressively remind one of my boys to get his work done.
    I showed him a bit of math, we took 4 of his grades and averaged them as if they were 5. Then I added a fifth grade from his report card and averaged them as 5 grades. His average shot up over 18 points! Needless to say he got right to work and finished his assignments on time.
    It's tough being 10 years old sometimes, LOL.

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    1. Mr. Pavone,

      Well done! That is exactly the support from home that teachers really do appreciate … and so will your son in due course.

      The essence of good discipline is well learned good habits … such as getting assignments done on time … and by doing what you have done, your son is well on the road to the self discipline he will need as he grows up.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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