Professor does experiment, learns wrong lesson
Kenyon Wilson is a professor of performing arts at the University of Tennessee. This past academic semester, he conducted a simple experiment to test what CBC describes as the “age old adage” that nobody reads the course syllabus.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard of professors doing this. But, it’s the most recent and it teaches a good lesson we all can learn from. Wilson’s experiment was a success – it returned compelling results. Sadly, the good professor does not appear to be among those who learned from them.
But, you and I can.
Did you read your undergraduate class syllabus? All of them?
I vaguely remember what an undergraduate university course syllabus is. It’s the boring as dirt, boilerplate, micro-print, mini-treatise that all professors are (or feel they are) compelled to write describing their courses: “This is the point of the course, this is what you will learn, this is how you will be graded, this is how your in-class contribution will be weighed against your exam and assignment results, this is why you need to show up on time for class, etc.”
If you’ve read one course syllabus, you have – quite literally – read them all. I imagine professors in the Dark Ages had scribes copying the same syllabus repeatedly onto parchment to be shared with the new acolytes. I imagine today’s professors all share the same templates on the same apps now.
Wilson was apparently unconvinced the “age old adage” was correct, so he buried deep into his three page codex a secret and incongruous instruction, leading students to a hidden treasure. For students diligent enough to make it that far, and still lucid enough to notice the parenthetical addition deviated from the boring pablum that preceded and followed it, the clue ran thus:
(free to the first who claims; locker one hundred forty-seven; combination fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five)
Clearly, of course, Wilson is not a professor of English or a scholar of grammar, given the tortured use of semi-colons. But, who am I; to complain?
Wilson place a $50 bill inside locker 147 which was located just outside the door to his classroom waited to see who would claim it. And, he waited.
He waited all term.
No one opened the locker. No one collected the fifty. No one passed “Go.”
Meaning: no one read the professor’s syllabus.
Ultimately, he pulled his own plug and confessed the brilliance of his experiment on Facebook where news of his genius went viral. Students rushed to find the “Easter Egg” hidden in their syllabus and took to social media scrolls with ardent cries of “Dang!”
According to CBC, Wilson “bears no ill-will” towards his students. Nor, should he. After all, they’ve taught him – and now us – a valuable lesson. Though, the professor seems not to have learned it. Pray you and I fare better.
Professor Wilson says he won’t repeat the experiment, telling CBC “I really think that spring of 2022 is going to be the most well-read syllabi of all time.” Again, not an English professor. Again, missing the lesson so plainly learned from his exercise.
The professor has missed the point entirely
The lesson is not that students are lazy and don’t read assigned writing. We already knew that.
The lesson here is that his course – which presumably is well-attended, reasonably popular with students and effective at teaching the subjects it was designed to teach (assuming grammar is not among those subjects) – is all of those things despite the clear, compelling evidence that students have never read his “mandatory” course syllabus.
Obviously, the syllabus provides zero value for the students.
I assume it requires at least a modicum of effort on Wilson’s part to occasionally update the dates in the document. So, it requires some effort and serves no purpose. As demonstrated empirically.
So, why is there even going to be a 2022 Syllabus?
Is not the lesson here that we should review and assess old habits and simply end the ones that no longer add value?
I think it is.
Did you read your undergraduate course syllabi? Are there things in your life that you’ve simply stopped doing because they have become meaningless?
Wow, now don't I feel like a loser. When I was in undergrad, I would read the syllabus with a fine tooth comb. When I was lucky enough to have the syllabus ahead of the first class, I always read the first two weeks of material ahead of time. I wasn't trying to win any contests, I just knew I could have easily become undisciplined and if I didn't put in work at the beginning of the term, I would be faced with a large mountain of work to do and I would give up. It ended up making me a better student and I was able to get a research assistantship from one of my profs; I ended up earning a Master's degree with no debt and a nice stipend to help pay the bills.