Normally I get pretty annoyed at people calling others ‘millennial snowflakes’ or the like because a lot of the time the issues they are talking about are actually important and merit discussion, but in this article I’m gonna call the people getting annoyed about the issue exactly that.
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It’s come to light that up at Leeds Trinity University, a memo has been sent around their journalism department to ban lecturers from using capital letters on slides, notes and marking as this could apparently scare them into failing their degrees. Just think about that for a second and then take a look as what the memo actually says:
Despite our best attempts to explain assessment tasks, any lack of clarity can generate anxiety and even discourage students from attempting the assessment at all.
To avoid this, please write in a helpful, warm tone, avoiding officious language and negative instructions.
Capitalising a word could emphasise the difficulty or high-stakes nature of the task. Generally, avoid using capital letters for emphasis and “the overuse of ‘do’, and, especially, ‘DON’T’.”
Students often talk to each other and any misconceptions or misunderstandings quickly spread throughout the group (usually aided and abetted by Facebook) again sometimes leading to non completion.
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I mean this just seems ridiculously stupid to me. As other critics have already said, words were usually capitalised to emphasise their importance and thus give students the best possible chance of completing the assignment to the desired level. Saying that it scares them into not even attempting it does sound stupid and for once I’m inclined to agree with people calling them snowflakes.
It just seems really ridiculous to me and judging by the uproar it seems to have caused it looks like most people agree with me as well. Really hope that this isn’t symptomatic of the next generation of people coming up in the world.
For more of the same, check out this university that banned clapping. All the rage these days.
