During 28 years of teaching higher education, I took countless opportunities to correct an impression that apparently resides in every student in or contemplating college.
One is simply that “In college, the professors don’t care whether you attend class.” The other is “You don’t have to attend class if you don’t want.” There is some truth to both notions. True, the typical college professor isn’t about to phone the parents of a truant student. However, professors do care how many people do the work and survive the class; they simply assume that the student must have reasons for missing class or failing to turn in the assignments.
During my first year of teaching, a student I had helped bring into the world–really; as a pre-teen, I was delivering a paper to her parents’ house when the father, near hysteria, asked me to run to the nearest phone to call a doctor, as the wife was in labor. The nearest phone was at my house, exactly a block away. I reached Las Vegas Hospital, provided information, and felt great that I’d helped increase the population by one.
But let’s repair that careless Rush Limbaugh-type self-interruption above. The student, who had done zilch in class, reminded me that “In college we don’t have to attend class.” True, but there’s no law that says a professor needs to issue a passing grade for zero performance.
The years taught me several things which apparently never surface in education “methods” classes or even practice teaching. Too late I learned about student attitudes on attendance.
A extremely sharp student belonging to a large extended family around Gallup missed class four weeks in a row, creating a situation in which passing the course became iffy. She explained upon her return that her grandfather had died. We have lots of students whose grandparents expire during the semester, usually around finals.
The student said her grandfather, 93, had become ill and had summoned all his descendants to gather round to see him through his recovery or his demise. My student identified about 25 first cousins, all of whom returned to their grandfather’s home to maintain a vigil. The student explained that 15 of the cousins were currently in college, most at UNM. Some had given up their jobs to be with their grandfather.
The grandfather died after four weeks. At that time I was preparing my “you’d be better off remaining in school” speech, but I sensed she believed it was her duty, as well as that of her relatives, to see her grandfather through the illness.
The grandfather didn’t survive, nor did the grand-daughter in my class–without further explanation she stopped attending.
In another case, a student listed as my advisee unabashedly said that whenever he wanted a couple of days’ break from classes, he’d simply scour the obituaries in the Albuquerque Journal, find a likely matchup, clip it and present it to the professors, claiming consanguinity to the deceased. It always worked, he said.
Another common occurrence was coming close to reaching the maximum allowable unexcused absences. One student had the habit of haughtily shoving a doctor’s prescription under the nose of the particular professor and expecting a chorus of concerns over their health, with the concomitant “Of course I’ll excuse you. my dear.”
The one time Rose tried it–word had gotten around that she practiced this frequently–I looked at the prescription blank and after a few seconds, explained that I was unable to help her: she’d need to take it to Walgreens or Murphey’s if she wanted the Rx filed. What am I, a bloomin’ pharmacy? And the last student often played the church card. During lent, she missed an important class. Armed with chapter and verse, she described the religious practices of her family and assumed I would have to excuse her because she was, after all, in church during class time.
She said, “But I was in CHUR-URCH,” in a tone that implied that if I weren’t sympathetic, I was an agnostic, heretic and apostate, in that order. Police in Santa Fe around that time almost started a revolution by ticketing illegally parked cars of people in CHUR-URCH.
How does one comment on a student’s loss of a loved one, or of claiming a relationship through a newspaper obit, or one’s attendance at church without inviting students to accuse the professor of being insensitive?
In October of 2002, my mother died, and the next day, her comadre, my brother’s mother-in-law also died. Severino’s children therefore lost two grandmothers in two days. Most of the grandchildren were well past school age and otherwise employed. But one wonders: how convincing were they when explaining the incredible coincidences to their employers?
And that was one occasion in which everything they said was on the level.