Judging lessons

to their students and so on. It was acceptable behavior – until we started to wise up and gradually worked to change the definition of “acceptable.”

We have come a long way since then, but there is more to do. Paradoxically, adjudicators continue to do a disservice to their pupils by giving them prizes. A rough count of prizes awarded in known student-judge encounters in competition in the more significant Scottish competitions in 2016 number at least 30. Their students probably well-deserved their awards, just as I believe that I deserved the 1984 Inverness Silver Medal. But any competitor with an ounce of humility knows that such prizes will not be seen by their peers as being quite so shiny. In fact, they are tarnished.

By awarding prizes to a pupil, a teacher-judge doesn’t help, but actually hinders, the student. As much as the competitor might have truly deserved the prize, it is not seen to have come honestly, and the “winner’s” peers will like it even less. The contestant then might well be assessed more critically by other judges, heard with a certain amount of cynicism, which is no better than judging pupils, but it’s reality.

Potentially, it’s not a leg up at all; it’s an even steeper hill to climb.

My experience in 1984 as a competitor will stay with me for the rest of my life. I believe that I deserved the prize, but I carry an element of doubt. I would have preferred then, just as I do now, that it had been awarded by judges who hadn’t taught me in the last year. Am I going to turn in my prize? Of course not, and nor should any competitor who won when judged by their teacher. It’s all, strictly speaking, within the “rules,” since these currently are only policies and guidelines.

As an adjudicator, I have refused to judge students not because I think I would be dishonest, but because I recognize the negative optics and the perception of conflict, and that a student will, like me, have some doubt – even if it’s just a trace – that a prize was deserved and fairly earned.

It’s a lesson in judging and competing that we might all learn to practice.

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