Be Afraid? Teacher Gets Right Down to Business in Syllabus

"Expect homework to be given every night. How often? EVERY NIGHT."

ByABC News
August 14, 2014, 2:15 PM
An Alabama teacher has been very upfront with the demands of his course.
An Alabama teacher has been very upfront with the demands of his course.
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— -- An Alabama school teacher has given his students their class syllabus, and it gets right to the point: First of all, there will be homework. In fact, a student in this particular class can expect to work their "tail off."

"In the past, other teachers may have tried to frighten you by saying this and they may have been bluffing," the teacher wrote. "I, on the other hand, am for real. If you don't plan on doing the work at a very high level, day in and day out, then you are in for a very rude awakening. Are you hearing me'? IF YOU DON'T LIKE WORKING HARD AND DOING HOMEWORK EVERYDAY, THEN CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE FAST."

The document was obtained by AL.com, an Alabama news site. The teacher is reported to be Tim Hurry, a math teacher at Homewood High School, and the syllabus was for his advanced algebra class, the website reported.

Hurry did not respond to ABC News' request for comment.

But anyway, students will have a lot of homework. Like, how much?

"Expect homework to be given every night," he wrote. "How often? EVERY NIGHT. Are you sure you are coming to grips with this? EVERY NIGHT. If you are the type of student who, in the past, has said, 'I don't do homework,' then please change your habits immediately or you will get hammered."

Hurry finds the following things offensive: sleeping in class (a "social faux pas"), sharpening pencils while he is teaching or during a test or quiz (other students, he said, should feel free to lay into a fellow student with a "verbal onslaught" if they break this rule) and inappropriate language.

But here's the thing about Hurry. He's not some bitter bee who hates his job. Far from it. Under the section titled "Misc," he wrote: "I chose to be a teacher. I was not relegated this position as I might have been in some socialist communist society and I did not become a teacher because I couldn't get a job anywhere else. I actually want to be here and I enjoy it, despite the weak salary.

"1 can only think of one student in my previous 21 years of teaching that I truly could not stand to be around, and last I heard he had spent time 'locked-up.'"