The Ethics of Slackers

I suppose I should call this post “the Ethics of Teaching Slackers,” since that’s what’s really going on. But I’ve been associated with what might charitably be called the Slacker Culture for going on forty years now, and I know from personal experience that there’s really more to this question than just Mr. Authority Figure taking on the Kids Who Are Way Cooler Than You Are. So let’s consider both sides of the issue and the ethics involved as a career slacker tries to cope with being a teacher who has to assign grades to slackers…

In the class I taught this summer, one of the assignments was a term paper – of a sort. I didn’t feel comfortable giving my students a full-sized term-project in a seven-week summer session, so I made it a three-page assignment; just enough to get the kids started in doing literature searches and article critiques. It’s the sort of thing that will be a piece of cake to anyone who had to do library research in high school (the way I did), and a useful introduction to this type of assignment for anyone who didn’t. You can’t get a degree in any social science without doing this type of research, let alone an advanced degree, and if you’ve never done this before it can be a bit intimidating. In fact, I had one student who needed my help learning how to use Google Scholar and how to access full-text versions of the documents on line, and several others who wanted to go over their early drafts with me before turning them in…

But on the other side of the room, one of my students has failed to hand in this assignment. It’s possible, of course, that he’s been eaten by giant wombats or called away on urgent and personal business before he could turn it in, but it’s also possible that he just figures (correctly) that he will pass the class with or without the points available. In which case, spending the five to ten hours he’d need to complete the assignment is probably seems less urgent than the 5,000 or so things a young man could be doing two weeks before the start of Fall Semester. The real question is what I’m supposed to do about it…

On the one hand, by syllabus for this class sets out the point totals available and the number you need to hit each grade level. Based on the points this student has received to this point, a passing grade on the final is all he would need to hit the 2.5 level on MSU’s grade scale, which is definitely passing, and in fact he gained enough points to crack into the 3.0 level without the paper. With even two-thirds of the points from the paper he’d easily crack the 3.5 level and pick up the extra grade points – not to mention whatever benefit he might actually gain from doing the paper. But, on the other hand, if he’s satisfied with that passing grade, he could conceivably use the extra time to prepare for harder classes he plans to take this fall, work extra hours at his summer job to have more cash on hand or pay down debts, or spend time with family he won’t be able to see again until December…

The other question, of course, is what message this sends to my other students, present and future. Clearly, blowing off an entire assignment is not the most respectful gesture in the world, and it doesn’t seem fair to all of the students who actually did as I asked them and completed the assignment. Of course, almost all of them got higher grades than our AWOL slacker will, and gained more experience and better reputations within the Department, all of which will help them in their future careers. But the question of whether I can ethically allow this matter to slide remains. Do I have a responsibility to the Department, the University, or my other students to compel everyone to complete the assignments I give them? Or do I have a responsibility to just set out the rules and then keep score and let the chips fall where they will?

It’s worth thinking about…