Ooooh, the semester must be underway for lots of you. The virtual mail bag was so full this morning. We could only use a few bits of the scores of notes that came in concerning this week’s Big Thirsty on the use and size of the Silly Bus, but we trust we’ve given you a sense of what folks are saying. Please enjoy the flava. Oh, and thanks to all the folks who wrote to say they loved the new Big Thirsty graphic from yesteday. Today’s sucks and we know it:
It won’t take long for any new teacher today to realize that it’s invaluable to have a long, detailed syllabus that reads like a legal contract. This will quickly be made obvious by the students who whine: “Turn off my cell phone? But it’s NOT IN THE SYLLABUS!” “No food is allowed in exams? But it’s NOT IN THE SYLLABUS!” “No web surfing in class? But it’s NOT IN THE SYLLABUS!” “Late homework isn’t accepted? But it’s NOT IN THE SYLLABUS!” “Don’t bring children under 16 who aren’t registered in the course to class? But it’s NOT IN THE SYLLABUS!” or my favorite (so far): “Don’t fill out the Scantron form on the back side? But it’s NOT IN THE SYLLABUS!”- My view of the syllabus is that it’s essentially a mechanism for covering your ass: if you spell out exactly what you expect from the student (in under 14 pages!!!!) then when they come crying to you with a low grade and charges that you were unclear in your expectations, you can point to the syllabus and smile.
- I REFUSE to make my syllabi “complete and official contracts.” They’re typically 4 or 5 pages long: Course name, my name, contact info, office location, office hours, description of the course and learning objectives, what they will do in the course that earns points, descriptions of the written assignments, how the point totals translate into letter grades, three short bullet points on classroom behavior (this is where people’s syllabi typically get bloated), a bit on where the Writing Assistance Center, some boilerplate about the office for students with disabilities, and a course outline and schedule (typically 2 pages). Easy-peasy. I will not give in to this Bloated Contractual Syllabus bullshit.
- Contract my ass–trying to spell out everything just gives the little bitches the idea to look for loopholes. We are scholars, after all–our judgement ought to count for something. Make the syllabus just long enough to get the dean (or whoever) off your back, and to hell with the rest of it.
- The appropriate length of syllabus is probably somewhere between Average April’s 14 pages and Joshing Jerry’s two. It will also depend on how many snowflakes you don’t want to deal with on an individual basis. AA has obviously been accumulating stuff in her syllabus for her entire career; she probably has piles of newspapers in her house dating back to her first middle-school current-events paper. On the other hand, JJ is simply a fool. You have to set out *some* written requirements; even if they don’t read the thing, you will be able to point to what you passed out and say, “I told you so.”
- Gen Y has been raised on the mantra that if they’re not EXPLICITLY TOLD not to do something, it’s somehow okay to do it, in spite of whatever common sense might say otherwise. They try to play the loophole, I smack them down, they try to appeal it to the dean/chair/mommy and daddy, I usually win, I then update the next semester’s syllabus and close the loophole to prevent future knuckledraggers from playing it. Last academic year, in one of my composition sections, I gave a section a take home final exam. The next day, I got a call from the campus writing center. One of my students was in there, insisting that they help him write his final exam–part of which covered an assessment of essay organization. “Would you allow a student taking a test in there to bring a tutor to assist him or her?” I asked. The administrator running the center acknowledged the logic and sent the student off (probably to have a friend write it for him), but the student’s defense was “you didn’t TELL me I couldn’t!” Welcome to Gen Y. So passive, so spoonfed, so overly-enabled, so entitled, so fucking stupid at times, that the syllabus (because they all think that going to the dean or chair is going to automatically trump the teacher) has to have every arcane, asinine, common sense point spelled out in no uncertain terms and Sesame Street-esque language because they’ve been fed this Kool Aid from their parents. Since most Gen Y’ers are expert grade lawyers walking out of high school (do you think most of then EARNED the grades they got. Chances are, that for every student there’s a high school teacher somewhere who was bullied, badgered, and outright harassed to change, manipulate, or elevate a grade to inflate the kid’s GPA that got him/her into college in the first place), it’s all but inevitable that they quickly take a crash course in Snowflake Contract Law once they’re in college, and they start haggling points and policies on a syllabus as a way of justifying their own bad behavior.
- My syllabi average 6-8 pages each. The purpose, as I see it, is not to give the students something to read, but to outline my classroom policies and the schedule for the course. I lay out what will and won’t be permitted, and the penalties for violation of these expectations. I lay out the basis of their grade for the course and means by which they may seek remedy if they have a problem. I give them the schedule (with deadlines, the content for each week, and important dates), and once I’ve done that, I stick to it. Problems? Objections? It’s all there in the syllabus. It is not my fault if you didn’t read it. Those are, and have always been, the rules. I give them hard copies and make it available electronically. You want an exception? According to the syllabus, that isn’t possible. I’ve had very few problems with this approach.
- The extensive and detail-oriented syllabus is my friend. Joshing Jerry is right - they won’t read it. However, Average April is also correct, and more correct where it matters; the syllabus is a contract. The extensive syllabus serves two purposes: it makes the instructor have thought out ahead of time the consequences to all the BS that the students will pull, so they are sensible (and fair, and standard), and it also covers the ass of the instructor when the inevitable entitled, arrogant, disrespectful, and generally deceptive asshole tries to pull a fast one. (Although, these students are usually exceptionally stupid, so maybe it should be called a slow one.) Does this sound jaded and cynical? Well, I’ve been teaching long enough now, and reading RYS long enough to understand that this is how the academy works. Once you find the best way to cover your ass, then you can get back to the business of being starry-eyed and idealistic about how you’re going to make a difference in all your students’ lives.
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