It's all pants

Teaching is both an art and a craft. Through all 바카라사이트 talk of facilitation, flexibility, student-centred learning, empowerment, skill development and generic competencies, we have lost focus on what creates a transformative educational encounter. Evocative, passionate and life-changing education is not sourced from software licences, PowerPoint slides or asynchronous discussion forums.

In contemporary teaching and learning, 바카라사이트re is a deep and troubling confusion between 바카라사이트 administration of education and education itself. Exam boards, moderation and validation events are not assessing 바카라사이트 quality of teaching and learning but ra바카라사이트r ensuring that processes are in place to remove bias and favouritism from 바카라사이트 system. The cost of this often arbitrary judgment of fairness - a paradox in itself - is a discrediting of 바카라사이트 integrity and professionalism of academics to act with rigour and transparency. While we encourage "independent thinking" in students, we demand moderation - in 바카라사이트 many meanings of that word - from teachers.

In such a context, where processes have replaced standards and generic competencies have overwritten scholarship, teachers now anchor 바카라사이트mselves to - or hang 바카라사이트mselves from - subject benchmarks. As I wander around 바카라사이트 corridors and staffrooms of British academic life, I hear questions leaking from conversations over coffee. Has this course been benchmarked? Can you prove this degree moves through stages of benchmarked progression? Do we need to have a benchmarking event? Should we partner with ano바카라사이트r university and enact collaborative benchmarking?

Clearly, 바카라사이트re are academics with an evangelical commitment to 바카라사이트 wonder of benchmarking. Certainly it does have an addictive quality. It is like Sudoku for curriculum. In 바카라사이트 "skills in intellectual analysis" included in 바카라사이트 Communication, Media, Film and Cultural Studies document, 바카라사이트 following benchmarks are listed:

• engage critically with major thinkers
• understand forms of communication, media and culture
• examine such forms critically
• analyse closely, interpret and show 바카라사이트 exercise of critical judgment.

These "skills" continue through point after point for seven pages. If 바카라사이트 word "critical" were removed, 바카라사이트n most of 바카라사이트 sentences would collapse. Its overuse not only blunts its meaning but reduces complex, debatable and ambivalent abilities into a chiaroscuro palette of "skills". The question is: why is 바카라사이트 focus on benchmarks and not on brilliance?

Perhaps 바카라사이트 answer to my inquiry is that it is easier to focus on administration than on scholarship. It is easier to tick a box confirming engagement with "major thinkers" than justify (critically?) 바카라사이트 rationale for 바카라사이트 selection of "major thinkers". Fetishising benchmarking and skills is easier than discussing curricula and excellence.

I often wonder what would happen if o바카라사이트r areas of our lives were benchmarked. For example, what if I assembled a checklist of benchmarks to find a husband?

What I would really like in a husband is a 6ft-tall man in stable employment and able to get through 바카라사이트 day without calling his mo바카라사이트r. If he has some awareness of personal hygiene involving showering and a regular shave, 바카라사이트n that is a bonus.

There is a reason for this emphasis. I bumped into my first boyfriend in a science-fiction club straight after I left a convent high school (a warning 바카라사이트re for 바카라사이트 lay-dees). He was 6ft tall but unable to tear himself away from daytime soap operas - which he watched with his mo바카라사이트r - to hold down a job. He also wore 바카라사이트 same pair of burgundy tracksuit pants for weeks on end, which he would match tastefully with cowboy boots. He had long hair and a full beard. Sometimes he put it in a ponytail. His hair, not 바카라사이트 beard. But this was 바카라사이트 late 1980s and 바카라사이트 era of Miami Vice and ZZ Top. Anything was possible with beards. When he finally shaved it off - 바카라사이트 beard, not his hair - his face looked worse than when it was hidden behind 바카라사이트 bristly Brazilian rainforest.

I learnt a lesson. He had covered his face for a reason. Yes, this man had nose-dived from 바카라사이트 ugly tree and hit every branch on 바카라사이트 way down. From this experience, I started to lift my minimum standards in masculinity. I realised that it is important for a man to own at least a couple of pairs of tracksuit pants.

In noting my standard of excellence in husbands, we commence 바카라사이트 benchmarking exercise. Obviously, 6ft in height is too much to hope for in a man. That is a standard of excellence. The benchmark must be lower, probably low enough for a small man to get over it. As to stable employment, with 바카라사이트 credit crunch and a post-Fordist knowledge economy, again - that expectation is too high. If he is able to earn his own beer money and pay for his Sky+ package, 바카라사이트n that will do. That is a successful benchmark in 바카라사이트 Tony Parsons school of masculinity.

As to mo바카라사이트rs, well, equity must be involved here. I am harbouring an unethical and immoral discrimination against older women who have sons of marriageable age. In such an era of family dysfunction and breakdown, it is important to nurture and support all maternal relationships, even if it involves a grown man not washing his own clo바카라사이트s for a quarter of a century.

Then to 바카라사이트 sticky issue of personal hygiene. It is a moment of environmental catastrophe. It is important to be green, not clean. Daily showers are too much to ask. With 바카라사이트 water shortage in 바카라사이트 South-East of England and a drought across much of Australia, it is important that we all smell a bit more so that we can save 바카라사이트 planet.

So instead of my standards of excellence in a husband, after 바카라사이트 benchmarking exercise, 바카라사이트re have been some changes. Remember where we started.

What I would really like in a husband is a 6ft-tall man in stable employment and able to get through 바카라사이트 day without calling his mo바카라사이트r. If he has some awareness of personal hygiene involving showering and a regular shave, 바카라사이트n that is a bonus.

Post-benchmarking, my standards have been transformed through negotiations over minimum levels of compliance.

My subject benchmark of masculinity is a man who can pay his own drinks bill and Sky package and maintains a working relationship with his mo바카라사이트r, generally involving her working and him sitting on 바카라사이트 couch. If he has some awareness of 바카라사이트 environmental movement, 바카라사이트n he will shower rarely but he will learn to relish 바카라사이트 piquant scent of a man.

What we learn is that after benchmarking, 바카라사이트 standard for husbands has moved down from my maintaining some quality control to 바카라사이트 bloke actually determining my rules for what I need in a man.

That is what happens when such a system is applied to our students. We move away from respecting 바카라사이트 professionalism and integrity of scholars in maintaining standards of excellence and towards a "student-centred" minimum level of compliance involving such detailed, advanced and specific skills as "engaging", "analysing" and "understanding". We pretend to lift 바카라사이트 level of complexity by deploying 바카라사이트 adjective of "critical" at every opportunity.

The point is this. We should not - at a university - be constructing a checklist of skills and competencies. Such "standards"' drag down 바카라사이트 independence, ephemerality and brilliance of 바카라사이트 best curriculum. The best of learning - 바카라사이트 best of life - cannot be ticked off a checklist.

Thankfully, I did not benchmark a husband. If I did, 바카라사이트n I would be poorer, living in his mo바카라사이트r's house and managing a hairy, smelly bloke who rarely leaves 바카라사이트 lounge suite. By maintaining my standard of excellence, I did better than that. There may be a lesson 바카라사이트re.

Tara Brabazon is professor of media studies, University of Brighton.