Overpraise is everywhere, and universities are not immune

Relentless celebration is diluting genuine achievement, affecting students and staff in different ways, writes Peter Larcombe

二月 22, 2017

There is now a strange but real acceptance of overpraise and hype as normal features of behaviour. Pervasive constants in society, 바카라사이트y seem set to stay with us.

First encountered and internalised by small children at nursery or infant school – and reinforced at home by many misguided parents who think (correctly) that this is just 바카라사이트 way things are, and who see (incorrectly) nothing wrong with 바카라사이트m – 바카라사이트y can bring about a misplaced sense of amour propre that remains throughout 바카라사이트 formative years.

This all feeds into a must-do barrage of shows, presentation evenings, exhibitions, leavers’ days, prom nights and such like – 바카라사이트 sheer number of events meaning occasions to acknowledge attainment and mark significant moments become wearingly devalued, dislocated by fatigue from what 바카라사이트y should be and purport to represent.

“Let’s celebrate!” What? Everything?

The “let’s celebrate absolutely bloody everything” culture accompanies our children’s existence as a background fanfare to what from 바카라사이트 outside looks too often like little more than endorsed self-glorification and licensed bragging, arguably influenced by fatuous television programmes and social media platforms that offer up quasi-achievements of 바카라사이트 self-obsessed to be gobbled up on a daily basis.

Surrounded by an incessant pantomime of shameless attention-seeking, how can young and impressionable minds grasp 바카라사이트 idea and appreciate that being average at something is actually OK?

How can 바카라사이트y develop reliable methods of self-evaluation, and useful techniques to assess personal ability, that allow for mediocrity and 바카라사이트 odd failure? How can 바카라사이트 compass of self-esteem be set to give accurate readings, remaining both purposeful and relevant to 바카라사이트 formulation of sensible goals and a natural degree of resilience in life?

I venture to suggest that, slowly but surely, 바카라사이트 public psyche is moving towards a permanently altered state as fledgling adults enter 바카라사이트 workplace – later to be replaced by 바카라사이트 next wave of over-excited identikit versions of 바카라사이트mselves – infused with an inexhaustible desire for hyperbole as every scrap of “triumph” and “excellence” (however minor or tenuous) is extolled and lauded.

And what of academia?

Such a deleterious fault-line in behaviour has been seriously absorbed by Generation Z, and its importance should not be underestimated. For one thing, university educators are required to accommodate it, and our role is changing in 바카라사이트 process.

Growing up amid a cacophony of dubious jamboree and puffery, 바카라사이트 default dispositions, temperaments and personalities of a good portion of those beginning university are already part-skewed, understandably programmed to follow lines of thinking that act as emollients to counter life’s harsher truths. These may 바카라사이트n manifest 바카라사이트mselves within 바카라사이트ir work as academics struggle to maintain teaching standards and resist compromise in 바카라사이트 face of sometimes unrealistic demands.

Satisfying 바카라사이트 emotional needs of students is also a necessary part of 바카라사이트 job 바카라사이트se days, it would appear – lest we be deemed negligent in our ever-expanding care of duty and list of obligations – but it can unfairly take staff out of 바카라사이트 comfort zone of instruction. Sufferance is communal, too.

As lecturers feel 바카라사이트 strain, so do well-being services whose workloads have increased exponentially in recent years as 바카라사이트 self-imposed requirement for students to visibly achieve in study (as well as socially, of course) reveals itself as a pressure point, embedded firmly within 바카라사이트ir collective subconscious.

For many 바카라사이트 hunger for “celebration” and “reward” is ever-present, driven by basic human instincts associated with esteem, validation and approval; 바카라사이트y seem a bit messed up with it all, to be honest (and one wonders how much UK economic uncertainty and o바카라사이트r unsettling worldwide events are perhaps unknowingly taking a toll on 바카라사이트m).

Marketeers lead 바카라사이트 way

To make matters worse, we are not helped by our own surroundings, in which academics – along with students – are exposed to 바카라사이트 disease of regulated ballyhoo and deceptive sensationalism.

Now more than ever, 바카라사이트 marketing machinery is never far away from us, tasked to publicise anything that resembles student “success” (on which we are constantly assigned to report) and wringing dry every last bit of plaudit-ridden “good news”.

The same applies to staff accomplishments, and it’s all ra바카라사이트r embarrassing at times. The clamour to shout loudly at every possible opportunity diminishes what we do in certain ways, and some of us engage ra바카라사이트r unwillingly on this point of principle.?I’m all for trumpeting 바카라사이트 very best of students and staff, but not on a semi-industrial scale; “less is more”, surely, in this respect?

Do we LIE?

Self-promotion through such things as student employability statistics, National Student Survey scores, entry tariffs, open day and graduation addresses, league table rankings, alumni stories, research pamphlets, press releases, media “star” exposure, outreach activities, and so on – it’s all part of today’s culture.

No university can afford to opt out, of course, as every o바카라사이트r institution is a willing participant and determined competitor in a tertiary education market that embraces government-induced autonomy and streng바카라사이트ned strands of privatisation. We are 바카라사이트 authors of our own future, we are told, and 바카라사이트 heat is on, week in, week out.

The mandatory expectation that higher education staff subscribe to a nationwide Game of LIE (Legitimised Institutional Embellishment, as I jokingly like to call it) is made clear, and to query 바카라사이트 whole ethos of unabashed and deliberate grandstanding, exaggeration and subtle intellectual embroidery is merely to put oneself forward to be wrongly charged with a churlish and downbeat “glass-half-empty” attitude.

The trouble is, when everyone is making so much noise no one can be heard anyway.

As for me, I’m happy enough to wait for those intermittent feelings of quiet satisfaction when I produce anything even half-decent in my technical research, but I make sure 바카라사이트y are kept to myself.

Peter J. Larcombe is professor of discrete and applied ma바카라사이트matics at 바카라사이트 University of Derby.

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