Personal Accountability
Spring Break officially begins today; however, as a Monday/Wednesday instructor, mine began a few days ago. I still have an armload of papers to grade, but I’m taking a few days off to recover from my last grading marathon.
The sun was shining on my world until I sat down to my e-mail this morning. On the heels of a recent assignment and the student messages from yesterday, it’s now tornado weather in my mind.
Just before the break, we had midterms and conferences. My students got what I think was a pretty sweet deal: over the course of the three class meetings leading up to break, I held conferences, and all each student had to do was show up for his or her 30-minute meeting, and in exchange, the student was done with my class until after the break.
There were two caveats to this: the assignments that were due needed to be dropped off by their due dates (one was due one week ago Wednesday, and the other was due this past Wednesday).
I am one of those instructors who is a poor planner: I pass out a syllabus on the first day of class that contains all of the major due dates for the course. That’s right folks, I’m so lazy, and I care so little about my students’ success, I let them know on the first day of class when things will be due.
Additionally, I wait until 2 to 4 weeks before a major writing assignment is due to pass out the specific guidelines. My students are given a mere 4 weeks to write a 4-page essay. Goodness, what am I thinking?
There was a real problem with the first essay: over 80% of my students had severe difficulty counting to four when preparing their papers, and of the remaining 20%, half of them couldn’t remember what I’d said about essay structure, so they gave me papers that contained neither thesis sentences nor connected analysis. (Of course, I don’t teach those things any more than I actually reveal due dates.)
Against my better judgment, I allowed those who were counting challenged and/or structure challenged to complete an alternate assignment to earn credit up to the minimum passing grade on that first essay.
Let me be clear: the extra assignment meant more work for me, but hey, it was my fault my students didn’t follow directions, right?
The due date for Essay #2 has come and gone, and I have been spammed by e-excuses regarding the variety of reasons another 4-page paper was impossible to manage in just under 4-weeks’ time.
The two that sent me into a mental frenzy are as follows:
- One student claimed to have forgotten the due date of the essay. When on Friday, she realized she should have turned her work in on Wednesday, she put a copy of it in my box and e-mailed me a version—for my convenience. The student assured me the work was completed on time.
Liar-liar-pants-on-fire!
Let’s think about this, shall we? A student works diligently on a paper, gets it done, but forgets when it’s supposed to be turned in? In fact, she’s so forgetful that the Wednesday prior to our break comes and goes, and it doesn’t strike her that since we only meet on Monday and Wednesday the paper might need to be turned in? In her confusion (or joy over the paper’s being done early) she forgets my e-mail address so she can’t ask me the due date, and she forgets the course Web site address where she could check the due date, and she forgets to look on the assignment sheet that lists the due date, and she forgets to look at the essay prompt which also has the due date.
Wow—is there a doctor in the house? This student has a brain disease.
- Add to this the student who finally finished his paper and dashed to campus last night at 8:00 pm on the Friday before Spring Break begins, and was shocked to find the campus locked up tighter than a drum. This student then badgered one of the janitors until he agreed to unlock the door, take the student’s paper, and put it in my box. Unfortunately, this horrible janitor man wouldn’t put his initials on the paper, nor would he verify the date and time for this ever-so-responsible-and-persistent student, so now said student is mad his paper might lose more credit than it should.
Now, I wasn’t a perfect student, nor am I a perfect teacher, nor am I a perfect person, but I like to think I operate with a certain degree of personal accountability.
I simply cannot comprehend the mindset of any student who feels his or her inability to be responsible is my concern or the concern of a janitor who could probably lose his job for unlocking a door after hours.
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