On the home straight to Christmas?
Reaching week 7 is often a bit of a watershed – we’re now closer to the end of our very long (and tiring!) Kent term than to the start, but we’ve also got to the point at which examples of the more chronic patterns of student ‘disengagement’ are beginning to emerge , take shape and receive a response. Thus, as I slip into the clutches of yet another virus (that has presumably been coughed or sneezed over me in one lecture theatre or another by one of the people who evidently regard basic hygiene as having no relevance for them in this regard) I can only reflect with sadness the fact that I have no fewer than 16 ‘disciplinary’ interviews scheduled this week. In some cases these have arisen from naivety and/or ignorance or misunderstandings and in some cases from circumstances largely or partly outside of the student’s control. however, in others there appears to be no such explanation, and the consequences are therefore easily defined. How disappointing, how sad – for us all.
