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This Professor Went Viral For Hiding $50 On Campus. The Reaction To It Should Embarrass Us All

What everyone missed in this viral news story about "kids these days."

Jason Feifer

Dec 24, 2021
25

Did you hear the story about the professor and his dumb-dumb lazy kids?

It’s pretty stunning — but not because of the kids. It’s because of how quick people are to blame young people for faults that are not their own.

Let’s take a closer look. Here’s the story:

That was one of many, many articles about the situation. They were all prompted by this Facebook post, where a professor explained the trick he’d played on his students:

In short: The cash prize was hidden “in my syllabus,” the professor wrote — and because nobody claimed the prize, it seems clear that nobody read the syllabus.

The world’s conclusion: Kids today are so lazy!!!

But wait!

“None of these stories actually talk about this supposedly obvious clue, which seems odd, given no one claimed the supposedly easy-to-find cash prize,” writes another professor, Kevin Gannon, in a truly fantastic Twitter thread.

Gannon dug in to learn more. Let’s go along for the ride.

First, we must ask: What is this “syllabus”? It sounds important! The average person might assume it contains the valuable information for the class, including all the readings and instructions.

But Gannon took a look at the actual syllabus and clue in question, and here it is:

What is this thing?

He explains: “Almost every institution has common syllabus statements—the policy boilerplate everyone's required to include in their course syllabi. Instructors usually download it from the uni website and append it to the syllabi they've created, often with a heading like ‘univ policies’”

This means that, while this one particular professor has decided to test whether his students read the syllabus, other professors have set an expectation that nobody has to read it. Gannon equates this text to the “cookies agreement you click on a website before you get to browse.“ Which is to say: It is there, but it is commonly ignored.

Gannon hits this home:

And also, Gannon takes a close look at the wording of this supposedly easy clue to find $50. Look closely:

“Does this look like free money to you?” Gannon asked. “Or a somewhat creepy offer to share a locker? How many people would read this and think ‘that dude effed up his copy and paste?’”

His conclusion: “So the viral story about buffoonish college students is actually...kinda not that at all? It's not an invitation to free money that's RIGHT THERE YOU FOOLS, it's a vaguely-phrased weird flex from a prof who wanted to do a Facebook stunt and look like the Clever Boy.”

But everyone missed this because of two reasons:

  • Internet reporting is often fast and sloppy.

  • We are extremely, embarrassingly prone to believe the worst of young people. We accuse them of being lazy and entitled, without for a moment remembering that the exact same accusations were leveled at us when we were the young generation.

I once went searching through history to see how far back this pattern goes. The answer: Older generations have dismissed or demonized younger generations at least as far back as Ancient Rome, and surely further.

And why do we do it? My favorite answer came from the world of medieval land disputes.

In the middle ages, land was everything: It was the source of your wealth and status. Local rules would also dictate when that land was to be passed down from a parent to a child. But sometimes, when the appointed time came, the parents would not pass the land to their child. Then it would end up in court.

Why was this happening? This situation was described to me by Andrew Rabin, an English professor at the University of Louisville with a specialty in early medieval law and literature. And he had a fascinating perspective on it:

“A child is a reminder of mortality. Once you have a child, you can get displaced,” he said. “So when you dismiss children — when you say that they are not living up to the standards of the older generation — part of what you're saying is that this child cannot replace me. This child isn't good enough to replace me. I am in some sense irreplaceable. I've conquered my mortality in that way. I have shown that I am too important to be replaced by this person whose basic job in the world is to replace me. And that's the anxiety that comes with these lawsuits about land. Because once the child gains the land, the child has replaced the parent.”

Why are we eager to believe that a classroom full of college students are so lazy, and so dumb, that they’d miss something as glaring as the instructions to a $50 bill that’s right there in front of them? Because it makes them less threatening. It gives us comfort that we will be needed for longer.

But as we near the end of this year, and think about the passing of time, I’d like to offer a different way of looking at this:

What if our greatest accomplishment is to simply use our time wisely, to tend to our land as best we can, and then to support the people who will one day take that land over? What if we stopped believing the worst in those people, and instead believed the best in them, and supported and collaborated with them, and welcomed them in?

We’d all be better off that way, I think. And by avoiding silly stories like the professor and the hidden $50, we’d save ourselves a lot of embarrassment, too.

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Cover credit: Kenyon Wilson

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25 Comments

  • Tio Grassoso
    It's seems fake.
    • 20w
  • Casey C Scandlyn
    I disagree with you, and here’s why. While you can certainly go with, “Kids these days”, and you can go the other way with, “Stupid stunt that wasn’t as obvious as was claimed”.
    The fact is, not one of the students was curious enough to even check it …
    See more
    • 21w
    Shaun Ra replied
      ·
    1 Reply
  • Poppy Seaberry
    The clue was not in the age-old academic integrity policy, which I rarely re-read (because I didn’t cheat so I didn’t feel the need to remind myself of the rules every semester). If that had been the case then sure, it’s comparable to not reading term…
    See more
    • 20w
  • Donald Walsh
    Typical, making excuses for the lazy College kids,That’s the reason they are the way they are, somebody’s always there to say it’s OK, do whatever you want
    • 20w
    Paula Main-Lakers replied
      ·
    2 Replies
  • Jules Bran
    I sent this article to my honor student syllubus reading fretting and rereading college attending daughter to get her reaction, and it was exactly what I thought. Her words were, "Was it a required assignment declared in the syllabus? No. Was it a stan…
    See more
    • 20w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      Thanks, Jules — and please thank your daughter for this very smart take! I agree 100%
      • 20w
  • Katie Solontoi
    "Kids these days" goes back to at least the 1st century AD. In the intro to his book, De Re Rustica, on how to keep a Roman villa/farm, Columella bemoans the young men of Rome, saying, among other things, "“For the bodies of our young men are so flabby…
    See more
    • 20w
  • Maria Solano
    The clue looks easy to find and in plain English. If anyone had read it they would have found it.
    • 20w
  • Natalie Wright
    Wow. That’s a lengthy article for outright laziness. Shoot, I didn’t read everything either when I was in college but that was before everyone got participation ribbons and safe rooms.
    • 20w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      Ah, except that's not historically correct: "Participation trophies" have actually been around since the 1920s, and were considered a very good thing until the 1990s. There is literally nothing different about the generation that grew up getting them, …
      See more
      Everyone Is Wrong About Participation Trophies
      JASONFEIFER.COM
      Everyone Is Wrong About Participation Trophies
      Everyone Is Wrong About Participation Trophies
      • 20w
  • Deana Estes
    The information on the syllabus looks like a cut and paste error or a joke. Had I seen that it the middle of my syllabus (which I usually read) I would have completely ignored it because it was nonsensical. I am sure plenty of students didn't read it…
    See more
    • 20w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      exactly!
      • 20w
  • Andreas Clarke
    Loved your overall message (I hope) if I got it at all. Lol! I believe for me it was at the end.
    Thank you for sharing these valuable reminders with us.
    • 20w
    • Author
      Jason Feifer
      Thank you, Andreas!
      • 20w
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