Intellectual Temptations

There's always the temptation, when you're under pressure to get syllabi ready for the coming semester, to look at the previous syllabus and say to yourself, "Gee, it worked pretty well--I'll just change the dates."

Then you just have to be sure you remember to change all the dates. I've been embarassed a couple of times when we got to the end of a Fall semester, and I confusingly listed the final as taking place in June. Or I caught all the dates on the assignments, but left the previous year in the heading line.

This semester, I was cursing because the syllabus for one class is on my office computer, and I'm sitting at home trying to get syllabi ready. Meaning: I have to completely retype the syllabus.

So, that's what I'm doing, and now I'm glad. Retyping is a form of rethinking for me. There will be some new ideas and new issues.