Dropping Like Flies (or, I’m Such a Meanie)

Each semester, I teach courses at the introductory and advanced levels.

After reviewing the class list for my advanced course in the upcoming spring semester, I realized that I had a disaster in the making:

• The ideal enrolment for an advanced seminar course is ten to fifteen students, but there were 25 students enrolled. (Too many!)
• Students should be juniors or seniors, but ten students were freshmen. (Don’t they understand what 100, 200, 300, and 400 mean?)
• Advanced courses are intended for students with a major or minor in my department, but only four were listed as majors. (And, no, just because your dad is a Shepherd doesn’t mean that you are as prepared as a major.)

On the basis of my experience last semester, I knew that I would spend the semester trying to get the unprepared students "caught up" on the academic study of the Good Book, but all for naught, because it would be too many issues to handle all at once and they would end up with a final grade of no better than a C.

In the meantime, the prepared students would endure the repetition of concepts that they had mastered in their introductory courses and grow increasingly impatient with class discussions that frequently had insufficient depth.

In short, the semester would be an exercise in frustration.

Further, a number of emails that registered students had sent to me signalled that they were looking for a "bird course." The emails were polite, but students taking an excess number of courses and inquiring about the workload of my course will not be students who come to class having carefully completed the assigned readings and having sufficiently prepared for the discussion.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. So, I took desperate measures: I sent an email.

The email was sent to the registered students and opened with a statement to the effect that I was concerned about their academic success. To that end, I wanted them to be aware that this course was not an introductory level course and that I would assume that all students had a basic understanding of the Good Book, the events discussed and surrounding its content and formation, and critical approaches to the Good Book.

I also gave an overview of the not-yet-finalized workload: readings from the three textbooks, as well as other chapters and articles; class presentations; short written assignments; a research paper; quizzes; a mid-term; and a final exam.

I sent the email only last Friday. And when I checked today, the class enrolment was down to thirteen.

Yep, they're dropping like flies. And that means that I have a chance of teaching an advanced course to students at an advanced level.

And, no, it really doesn’t hurt that I’ll have fewer papers to grade...