Teachers’ Biggest Pet Peeve

in Education by Kathy Teel — October 26, 2010 at 8:19 pm | 3 comments

Just Follow the Instructions, Please

This week I’ve been grading papers.  Sort of.  I’ve been grading rough drafts.  The actual paper isn’t due until the week before the end of the semester.  It’s not a huge paper…5 pages, double spaced.

Of course, that already gives two places where students could go wrong:   “5 pages,” and “double spaced.”

In an informal survey of college faculty, we asked participating teachers the following question:  What single thing bugs you the most about your students’ papers?  The answer was unanimous.  One hundred percent of teachers surveyed said that the worst thing they have to deal with is students not following directions.

Know the Rules So You Know How to Win

For example, my World Religions paper has instructions like, “Make sure to include the answers to these 7 questions,” “use footnotes, not end notes or in-text notes,” “5 pages,”“double-space,” and…no, wait, that’s it.  That’s all.

Now, what do you think I got?

• Questions unanswered in favor of papers written in the “random facts about me,” “my personal rant,” or “cut-n-pasted from Wikipedia” formats.

• End notes, in-text notes, and no notes.

• One page, 2 pages, 3 ½ pages, and one 7 page (although I can live with that).

Now, I did say that the first draft could be handwritten instead of computer printed…but is there something in the sentence, “You can hand-write this if you have to,” that sounds like, “please don’t double space if you have scrawling illegible handwriting and your arguments make no sense?”

I didn’t think so.

Look, I know there are more than a couple of arbitrary power-hungry classroom tyrants out there who want to make students jump through ridiculous hoops just because they can.  But not many more than a couple.

Believe it or Not,Teachers Aren’t the Enemy

Most college teachers approach every assignment with one compound thought in mind: “How can I maximize their learning while minimizing their work?”  I know it might not always feel like it, but we teachers are on our students’ side.  We want them to succeed.   So, if I ask my students to address these 7 questions in a paper, there’s a very good reason for it.  If I ask for the paper to be double spaced, I need it double spaced.  I’ve thought this through, I’ve considered all the alternatives (yes, including not having students write papers at all, which some of my colleagues have resorted to in a sort of resigned despair), and this is the best learning activity I can come up with.

However, this is college, not high school.  I am not responsible for my students’ learning—in an adult-learning setting, the students are responsible for their own learning.  I can only teach the material and offer assignments that will maximize that learning if they do them the way I directed.  And sure, I’m going to bang my head against the desk every time a 2-page-single-spaced-end-noted paper appears on the top of the stack.  I still don’t know why people can’t just follow directions, but in the end, students don’t leave my class with the grade I give them.  They leave it with the grade they earn.

Tags: following directions grades papers students teachers