Originally Posted by Emjaysmash:
:-)I think some people skimmed the rules of this game...
That's the way it is in most places. People start reading, see the general idea, skip the rest of the directions, and do what they want to do anyway.
In school, I had a worksheet to teach "following directions." I won't put it all here, but you'll get the idea. I would tell them, you will have 10 minutes to complete this exercise.
At the top of the page, in bold print...
Dircections: Read the [i]entire page[i] before doing anything.
What followed were numbered sentences telling them to do all sorts of things: put your name on the top left hand corner of this page, put three Xs on the bottom left hand corner of this page, circle the Xs you wrote on the bottom of this page, without a calculator figure out this problem 2495X8888 (you may write on the back of this page), and about another 20 odd things.
Finally, the last sentence read: Now that you have followed the directions and read through this whole sheet before doing anything, turn your paper over, put your name on the top right hand corner, and put your head on the desk. Even the slow readers could get to the bottom of the page in less than 10 minutes.
When I was teaching, I'd give that same worksheet to them at the beginning of each semester, and I'd still have over half the class doing all the things on it the second semester and complaining when I told them to put their pencils down, that I didn't give them enough time. At which I would ask them to read the directions at the top of the page - read them again - OK, will someone read them out loud? Someone would. I would then ask them, "So, how many of you read all the way through before doing anything?" It was amazing how many hands would go up.
Then I'd tell them to read the last sentence, I believe it was #25 - read it again - would someone read it out loud? OK, now hand in your papers. If you have nothing except your name on the back of this sheet in the right hand corner, you get an A+, iif there is anything else on your sheet, you failed.
The best one was the student who had done like five sentences, and came up and asked for a second sheet because he'd made a mistake (he was doing it in pen, not pencil - breaking the spoken rules I had given not to use pen, but only a pencil). I told him, "Let me see your page." He brought it up. I wrote an F on it, gave it back to him and told him to sit down, read the directions out loud 10 times, turn his sheet over, and put his head down and sit quietly.
It was a fun exercise. I did teach some to follow directions, some didn't learn. I had three grades in one classroom, and some of those kids I had for 3 years, and invariably, the were a few students who never got it right. Their complaint, "Ooops, I forgot about this one."
No, you didn't follow directions.
Peace of the Lord be with you.
[Reply]
:-)
