A teacher in the US plays tricks and discovers that no student reads the class program

A university professor in Tennessee, USA, decided to verify that his students actually read the program of classes he delivers at the beginning of each semester and, for that, he performed a humorous experiment.

Kenyon Wilson, of the performing arts department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, placed the following message in the middle of the text of his last semester music class program: “For the first to claim; locker 147, combination 15, 25, 35 “.

The clue would have led students to a $50 bill. At the end of the semester, however, the professor opened the locker and saw that the money was still there. None of the students got the message.

“Nobody reads the show,” Wilson said in an interview with CNN, after telling the story in a Facebook post in early December.

“It’s like accepting terms and conditions when installing software, for example. Everyone clicks [no campo que diz] who read it, when in fact no one does.”

The class had 71 students. The professor said that the program does not usually change much, but because of the Covid-19 pandemic and security protocols, some points were changed. “On the first day of class I told them that some things had changed and recommended reading the program.”

In the closet, Wilson left the $50 bill with a note that said, “Congratulations! Please leave your name and date so I know who found it.” And waited for the final exams to check the locker.

“I had hope and would be happy with this conversation if any of my students had found [a nota] in the first week,” he told CNN.

The students took the game in stride. Haley Decker, who recently graduated from college and has been a student of Wilson for the past three years, said the test was “hilarious.”

“This class usually has the same format each semester, so students already know what to expect and don’t waste time reading the program,” she said. Her classmates, she added, also thought the prank was a smart move by the teacher.

“It was a clever experiment. It made music students realize that despite the repetitive information, you still have to read the syllabus carefully,” Decker said.

Wilson’s post provoked a reaction from his students, but not only that — it also gave ideas to other professors across the country.

“Maybe the spring of 2022 [início das aulas nos EUA, outono no hemisfério sul] have the most read class program of all time,” joked the teacher.