As we roll into the summer break, I have little to offer in the way of insight on matters pedagogic, so I’ll leave you to ponder the following:
This got a lot of attention over on Twitter last week, with opinion less than settled about whether it was A Good Take or A Bad Take. You can read the many, many comments by clicking through.
Me, I’m a pretty relaxed person about names, not least because of several decades of mangling of my surname and occasional uncertainty about what my actual title is.
I know I’d rather have a student contact me to ask something and make Simon (even Si), than for them to be too worried about honorifics to email at all.
Yes, there are pitfalls all over the place – from hierarchies of power to false matey-ness – so probably the best thing is to talk to students about it directly, when you meet them first.
And as the OP put it, it’s not something for the syllabus, because no-one reads that, apparently.
Which might raise some questions about why your syllabus isn’t working. But that can be one for next time.