Just Follow the Directions

by Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

I teach mostly high school students. About half of them struggle to follow directions. This problem isn’t limited to this age group, but I can easily compare them across the span of my teaching career. Sure, I’m getting older and crankier, but even younger colleagues concur the situation is getting worse.

Maybe humans hit information-overload long ago even while they must still live in the constant blast of the online information-spigot. Perhaps students of this age naturally figure I’ll just email them if it were important. Most people assume they know what an assignment entails long before they’ve read how to complete that assignment (and they are often wrong). Sure, nearly everyone finds orientation handouts and syllabi dull reading. This doesn't explain the trouble.

Following instructions is important for success in the kitchen, furniture assembly, filling out required paperwork at the DMV, knitting a sweater, and completing a research project. If you are adept at following instructions you can build your own house, run a business, craft a gourmet meal, or paint “almost” like an expert. 

Failing to follow the instructions leads to comical “post-worthy” inconveniences to major disasters worth millions of dollars. We know this, yet reading and following instructions fall in the same category as flossing after every meal. We know we should do it more often than we do. (Virtuous flossers: please don’t send me notes).
 
Fans of The Great British Baking Show will confirm that following instructions can be the main issue during the technical challenge in which everyone is required to bake the same thing. Disasters aren’t usually due to a lack of skill but due to a failure to follow the (admittedly vague) instructions. The video editors love to show hosts issuing admonitions and tips followed by clips of contestants ignoring those admonitions and tips. This makes for great entertainment plus we can shake our head and say, “No wonder the sponge is stodgy!”

I use several ways to get my students to follow my instructions. I know these things work because they become excellent directions-followers. Newest students will struggle and stumble for the first 4 or 5 assignments but then their next 7 or 8 decades run more smoothly. It’s worth it. What do I do to get students to follow instructions? Here are just three ideas:

1. I can be a bit dramatic. Sure, it isn’t going to be the end of the world if a student ignores some formatting laws, but my instructions make it clear they will lose points if they do. When their score is diminished by something so easily fixed as line-spacing or font-size, they pay attention the next time to both the details and the big picture. 
 
2. I sometimes hide ways to earn bonus points deep in the instructions. After the assignment is over, there’s certain to be a peer boasting in class about those helpful extra points. Oh my! Everyone becomes careful to read all the instructions on the next assignment, just in case there are more hidden goodies.

3. I expect them to follow instructions and hold them to it. This last pointer seems to be a no-brainer. Don’t we all expect people to follow the instructions we provide? The number of new students who use their failure to read or follow the instructions as their excuse to ask for a second chance suggests otherwise. Many are accustomed to blaming the instructions rather than blaming their failure to follow the instructions. Their approach works for them elsewhere or else why would they try it in my class? I step outside everyone’s comfort zone, pick up my “mean Latin teacher I.D. card,” and require everyone to follow instructions. When things unravel (as they often do), I encourage them to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and do better next week. They usually do. By week three or four, things start to go smoothly for everyone.

Simply following instructions will bring most of us to a satisfactory point in our grades, furniture construction, dinner preparation, knitting, gardening, and home repair. Following instructions will get us through the most mundane paperwork tasks and the most elaborate swing set/treehouse ever crafted by flashlight. Are instructions vague, poorly worded, or are they in Swedish? Are you experiencing unusual variances in the assignment expectations, turkey or font size, tax table specifics, or tab A/slot B issues? This is normal! Ask your instructor, mentor, elder, parent, neighbor, or more experienced peer. That’s all part of the skill set as well.