Written for EDU6920 in 2015.

Because I write sestinas when I get irked....

There is some value found in this report -

the rare and individual ways we learn,

achievements far too hard to be assessed -

but only as a counterweight design,

a platform for such follies as are formed!

Beware, be scared, for we are being watched.

This hierarchy prefers that we are watched,

that flaws and merits both go on report,

and thus, opinions might be rightly formed,

allowing all to target what they learn.

Should that condemn outright the whole design?

A paranoid unease of being assessed?

So let the whole thing now be re-assesed!

If there’s some honest good in being watched

then we should overhaul the whole design.

Give time enough to make a true report

and cull the subjects that our students learn!

Their academic breadth can die, unformed.

The tract is hypocritically formed.

Assessors, too, are gleefully assessed

and found unfit, or ill-equipped to learn:

for growth is only valid when unwatched!

So teach beyond proficiency’s report;

the quackery that blooms is by design.

And there we see at last the real design,

the normalising storm-surge that is formed,

that scours away all will to make report

of any glories that might be assessed

Quis custodiet! Let us not be watched

by any means that might use us to learn.

But, liked or not, we cannot fail to learn

our lives are electronic by design.

By peers and programmed processors we’re watched,

and through them both are better questions formed.

Although we are obliged to be assessed,

our data’s an anonymised report.

So as we learn, let learning be informed

enough to redesign what is assessed.

Observe, be watched in turn, revise, report.