Last updated on November 26, 2023
Podcast 047; Season 4, Episode 11; November 10, 2020
Please don’t add chaos to the world. Follow directions. I try to teach my students the value of directions. As parents, my wife and I try to teach the same lesson to our daughters. When you follow directions, fewer things go wrong, there’s less chaos, and you can focus on more important choices.
Following Directions Matters to Me
Welcome to The Autistic Me Podcast. I am Christopher Scott Wyatt, speaking as The Autistic Me.
Order matters to me, and it matters to many autistics. We like things done a certain way, especially if there are rules or guidelines provided.
Directions offer rules, or at least some guidelines. Ignoring directions feels wrong to me.
Sure, some directions, like recipes, leave room for adjustments. My wife and I take notes when we bake and adjust recipes to our preferences. But, there are still directions you don’t ignore when baking or the results are disastrous.
When I was a student, nothing bothered me more than the students who wouldn’t follow directions. They needed to have the same instructions repeated several times. I disliked the wasted time and energy.
As a teacher, I put instructions for assignments in multiple places. Yet, I’m constantly repeating what is stated in the syllabus, on the course calendar, within assignment handouts, and online in several locations. I send email reminders, post updates to the learning management system, and use messaging apps to keep students on task.
Yet, most Friday nights I’m answering emails and messages about the assignments that are due for the week.
There are courses I’ve taught since 2004. That’s 16 years during which I’ve revised materials and refined the instructions. The first semester of any course requires adjustments to the lectures, activities, and assignments. After a decade, you’re making refinements, not completely overhauling the courses.
Most teachers I know have the same complaint. Assignment instructions? What are those? Students will ask you questions rather than read the materials or listen to the original instructions in class.
I grade using points. Students can earn up to 1000 points during the courses I teach. Assignment values appear in the syllabus, on the calendar, on each assignment, and online.
And every Friday night I receive emails or messages asking, “How much is this worth, Dr. Wyatt?”
I provide grading rubrics, which are tables that describe the requirements for A, B, and C work. The rubrics are included with the assignment sheets. If I ask students to create a three-minute audio file, I note that each ten seconds over or under the assigned time results in deducted points.
“Why did you take off points? It was over three minutes!”
Yes. The directions asked for three minutes. Not four or five minutes of audio. Three.
Students imagine directions and grading requirements reflect arbitrary or even random whims of instructors. No. Our directions are part of the lessons we teach.
If you’re asked to prepare media for a set time, that’s what the client needs. Commercials are set lengths. Television shows are set lengths. Learning to work within time limits is part of what you need to learn in media courses.
If students would follow directions, I could spend more time helping them and mentoring them.
When I ask students to create documents or media, I ask for the work in specific formats. Audio for podcasts should be in MP3 format. Scripts should be PDFs, with industry-standard formatting. The directions and requirements for audio files appear in 15 locations for my current class.
Yet, we’re now in week 14 of the course and I’m still receiving audio files in five or six different formats. That’s despite the students losing points each and every time they have submitted other formats throughout the course.
I don’t understand how this happens. We provide links to free software tools for creating the audio files in the correct format. Our campus labs have the software tools installed.
The Adobe portable document format is more familiar and universal than the MP3 audio format.
Yet, as the end of the semester approaches, I still receive documents created in Word, OpenOffice, WordPerfect, Pages, and even a WordStar file. Two students have emailed me photos of their computer screens with documents loaded. Who sends a picture of the screen like that? At least learn how to capture the screen image directly.
I spend the first two weeks of class discussing how to create and convert files in various formats. I demonstrate exporting audio to the standard MP3 format for podcasts. I demonstrate exporting documents from several applications into PDFs. I review these processes every three to four weeks when project deadlines approach.
Nothing seems to solve the problem of ignoring directions.
The skills I’m teaching are workplace skills. Directions matter in the workplace. Do students not believe me? I tell them an employer isn’t going to waste time converting documents and media output for distribution. If you’re given a task, follow the directions.
I keep telling my daughters that I want them to learn the value of following directions. My wife tells them the same thing.
And, yet, they still seem to read only some of the instructions for homework assignments.
Granted, our daughters are only seven and eight years old, but I don’t want them to be those students. We also don’t want them to be those employees that annoy their supervisors and managers.
Looking back, I was the student always asking for clarifications. I worried about not earning every possible point on an assignment. Today, if a teacher asked for an MP3 file, I’d ask for the preferred bitrate. I’d probably ask questions about the post-production settings, too.
I was probably as annoying as the students who ignore directions.
Because I was the student seeking every detail, I include as much information as I can within my own assignment materials. I structure my assignment sheets with the most important information at the top of the first page and key points in bold type.
It should not be difficult to follow the basic directions and do well in the classes I teach.
Yet, it seems incredible difficult, even impossible, for many students. Year after year.
I cannot understand the chaotic natures of so many people.
It’s not only students of all ages, but people in general. Humans don’t follow directions. They don’t keep checklists. They don’t maintain calendars. They don’t put things back where the items belong. They leave chaos in their wakes, creating disorder.
People don’t meet my expectations.
Put your shopping cart in the car corral. Place order here. Stand behind the yellow line for safety. Wait for the train to come to a complete stop. Zipper merge two miles ahead. Wash your hands before exiting the restroom.
I will gather carts near my car and put them into the corral. I’m that person who puts an item back on the correct shelf, in the correct spot, in a grocery store. I am compelled to fix the chaos around me.
No matter how much I try, I cannot think like the students who don’t read directions. I cannot think like the people who don’t follow rules or guidelines.
Is it an autistic trait that I follow directions? I doubt it.
Most people I know in science and engineering pay attention to directions, too. My wife follows directions. She carefully reads instructions when she receives a new appliance or technology device.
My dream is that our daughters also follow directions and work hard to do their best work. Don’t confuse following directions with being an uncritical follower. I also want my daughters to know that distinction.
Please, when a teacher or client or supervisor asks for a project in a specific format… follow directions.
I get tired of repeating myself as a teacher and as a parent, but that seems to be part of the bargain.
I am Christopher Scott Wyatt, speaking as The Autistic Me. Thank you for listening.
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