My New Very Simple Syllabus
Couldn’t the entire thing (instead of the nine page manifestos I’ve created for my bands of pupils) simply list the seven notes of Enlightenment, as the Buddha described them:
energy, joy, concentration, attentiveness, mindfulness, curiosity, equanimity
Isn’t that what every course wishes to present, to develop? Isn’t that every good syllabus, boiled down to seven words?
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recently i was hiking and talking with my friend george who leads canoing trips at a camp in wisconsin. george told me a lot about the camp’s policies and how they are enforced. the rules seem cumbersome and unnecessarily explicit to me. george assured me that this is okay because the rules are made to protect The Camp, The Staff, and The Campers, in that order.
a syllabus is probably made for the same reason, but maybe in reverse order. to protect The Students, The Faculty, and The College. maybe reading nine pages of the seven notes of enlightenment broken down into assignments, policies, points, etc. helps students realize that the class is about energy, joy, concentration, attentiveness, mindfulness, curiosity, and equanimity. and maybe it is that realization (and not the “workload”) that makes them think, “oohhh, this class will be tough.”
reading the nine-page-manifesto-style syllabus is like starting at the end of the maze and working your way backward to the start.