Tales from the Classroom II

Posted on August 29, 2003 @ 6:48 pm

It’s the end of another week, and I have a whole new set of great stories from my classes. As I said last time around, however, this is neither the time nor the place to dish on what’s going on with the classes I’m currently teaching. Fortunately, there’s nothing stopping me from going back a few years and digging up a bit of dirt from my time spent teaching at Virginia Tech. That being said, it’s time for another installment of… Tales from the Classroom! (cue theme music)

When I teach, I enforce what some people would call a ridiculously strict attendance policy; that is, I require attendance. The usual counterargument that students are the ones paying the tuition and shouldn’t have to attend if they don’t feel like it just doesn’t hold water with me. After all, my job is to teach them political science, and I simply can’t do that if they aren’t there. Plus, most of the students aren’t paying tuition; their parents are–and I have a feeling that they’d probably prefer to see little Timmy drag himself out of bed for a 2:30PM class if at all possible.

Nevertheless, students find various reasons to miss class on occasion–some of which are slightly more valid than others. I’ve had students stroll into class for the very first time during the fifth week of the semester and explain that they hadn’t made it sooner because they didn’t know where the class met. I’ve had a student miss class because she went with her friends on a snowboarding trip and “didn’t think that we’d be covering anything important this week.” I’ve had one student miss class because his brother was busted for dealing pot earlier in the week, and the student was too busy going around to friends and family to collect bail money to make it to our weekly meeting.

I’ve had a female student go into agonizing detail about very personal medical problems to explain her absence from class. Trust me, a vague note from the university health center would have sufficed. I’ve also had at least one student try the only excuse under the sun lamer than “I play in a band, and we had a late gig last night,” which would be “my roommate plays in a band, he had a late gig last night, and it would have hurt his feelings if I wasn’t there.” Meanwhile, I once had a student who attended my class on a consistent basis that it turns out wasn’t even registered for the course. Apparently, she had heard from a friend that the course was “fun” and decided to attend–just for kicks. But, that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, pouring over the various excuses I’ve heard from students for their absences through the years, I’ve arrived at two preliminary conclusions:

1. Alarm clocks malfunction roughly 40 percent of the time–always going off late (if at all) and never early. It’s amazing that alarm clock manufacturers can even stay in business given such a poor level of quality assurance.

2. During the course of a semester, the average college student will have at least one grandmother pass away–and quite possibly as many as four. So, if you’re an elderly woman with a grandson or granddaughter in college (and you happen to be reading my weblog for some strange reason), I’d strongly recommend that you make sure that your affairs are in order. I’m afraid that you’re not long for this world.

© Copyright Apropos of Something • Powered by Wordpress • Using Eye Candy theme by Brian Gardner.