Why Are My Kids So Bad?: Constructing a Freshman Ethic to Promote Success and
Sanity in the College Classroom
Sarah Capello, English, Point Park University
Abstract: Each semester, students and professors spend grueling hours gleaning and imparting knowledge.
Unfortunately, these long hours and degree ambitions are frequently derailed by nonacademic classroom distractions
like chatting, texting, Internet surfing, absenteeism, and sleeping. Class instructors spend needless amounts of time
answering emails and entertaining office visits from students who miss class, fail to submit assignments, neglect to
write papers, and have, overall, no moral motivations to complete coursework above a barely passing level. Drawing
on the research of Sam Eldakak (“Does Applying Ethics in Education Have an Effective Impact in the
Classroom?”), Sharon Smaldino (“Classroom Strategies for Teaching Ethics”), and Barbara S. S. Hong, et al.
(“Impact of Perceptions of Faculty on Student Outcomes of Self-Efficacy, Locus of Control, Persistence, and
Commitment”), this poster postulates preemptive strategies and policies that professors can implement to instill
proper behaviors and an ethical paradigm for students to follow. As Freire argues in The “Banking” Concept of
Education, when an educator holds all knowledge, the student is reduced from an intelligent participant in the
learning process to a semi-comatose sponge. If applied to the classroom ethical paradigm, we can see that a banking
approach will endorse an oppressive list of classroom “dos and don’ts” with no personal connection to the students.
This poster, instead, proposes a constructivist pedagogy where students set their own policies and consequences for
classroom behaviors with basic guidance from the instructor. By constructing an ethic for the class, the college
instructor will bypass axiological gray areas and be spared maudlin entreaties for exceptions and extensions. In turn,
students will be morally and academically invested in their coursework and prepared for future courses. Designing a
classroom ethic for freshmen is especially relevant and highlighted in this poster due to their general lack of
experience and knowledge of university expectations.