i would spend maybe 30 minutes writing a syllabus each term, because so much was already given. When i moved to higher ed, i took the syllabi that other people had given me as models. And so created very strict syllabi that i look back now and just cringe at. There were a lot of policies i simply didn't want to enforce when they when we got into the classroom.
Matthew Cheney describes Cruelty-Free Syllabi on episode 296 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.
Quotes from the episode
A lot of my work, a lot of my career, and a lot of the moments that were most tense were moments where I had forgotten to trust students.
-Matthew Cheney
Respect students as human beings.
-Matthew Cheney
Students don’t enter a classroom immediately trusting a teacher.
-Matthew Cheney
We get used to a bureaucratic academic language that we oftentimes just inherit .
-Matthew Cheney