I will be missing class today. You see, I was going to come but then....

What? No last minute "learning disabilities"?

The tone is a bit harsh for a first day lecture. Why not lighten it a little with a bit more humor? Why not let a little Wodehouse in. I bet Bertie has demonstrated his share of these traits....

I admit that as a GSI in an Engineering department, motivation and attentiveness aren't my top student problems (getting them to limit themselves to office hours is more like it), but I have seen several professors lose the class on the first day by being too severe (usually the classic "look to your left, look to your right, one of you...."). However that may have been the professor's goal all along (see "top student problems..." above).

After giving the lecture yesterday, I agree that it was pretty harsh. Four years of hearing these things has gotten me down, though, and it's been surprising how much I mention that "grandmother died" bit to other professors who just nod in understanding.

I joked in class that these are the excuse cliches--as a writing class, I expected them to come up with something more original!

I do sympathize. I've heard all of these and I sit on a faculty committee that listens to the appeals of students who have been suspended and want to come back right away anyway. You hear all of these over and over again.

I just now met my last "first class" of the new term. I must admit I don't think I'd lay into them with something like this on the first day. This is my sixth year of teaching a 4/4 load.

In between the usual first day things (which also include some comedic material to sort of lighten things up) I do tell them that I'm "no nonsense" about this stuff and I have fewer problems with this stuff than some colleagues but it is a problem -- largely fostered by the "customer" culture that students in Higher Ed have these days (often abetted by administrators as well).

Hang in there...

Tom

Thanks, Tom. Reflecting on it, I'm convinced that I let my last semester just get to me a little bit too much. I'm happy to say that I checked my roster today and no student dropped after the Monday morning lecture, so I'm hoping they all took it in the spirit that it was given--not a belittlement of their problems, but a realization that I'm becoming jaded to it.

We "joke" in meetings that teaching the LIT-100 courses (basically first college semester writing) that you don't get to teach the students about writing much, but instead are teaching them about being students. This is a second semester course, and I guess I'm trying to say, I'm hoping you learned something from that first semester, because I'm going to be tougher on those things in this one.

I often wonder if I have less of a tolerance for this sort of thing because I'm an adjunct instructor instead of a full-timer?

Being tougher might be better than when I took your class. It was nice being your friend, but you are a teacher and most students don't understand things with much clarity.

Did you know that I have several learning problems? Yeah, I is loaded.

I think I handled that a little better, at least in the opening lecture, by telling them, "Hey, I'm not against having fun, and I really do like each and every one of you, but your evaluation is based on your performance--both in class and in your essays--and just because I like you isn't going to change your grade."

The opposite, but equally true, case is "just because I dislike you isn't going to change your grade." I've had students in my class that either got under my skin or worse, but when it gets down to the end of the class, I take the grade book and everything is based on as quantitative a factor as I can manage, including absences and class participation.

Based on my student evaluations, I'm getting "tougher," too.

Hi, just came across your blog and I've enjoyed poking around in it a lot. I have to take some issue with your comments above though. I agree with Tom's comments about the first day excuse speech maybe coming across as harsh, particularly because I recall that most of my worst college experiences were with professors who were so prepared to think the worst of their students that they seemed to focus exclusively on the negative. A handful even seemed to actively seek out grounds to criticize their students, to the point that the majority of good students just faded into the wallpaper as far as the prof was concerned. I had a freshman lit professor who started her class by announcing that all freshmen were illiterate by nature, and therefore she would be automatically submitting any competent papers to the integrity council on suspicion of plaigarism. It turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the entire class ended up scared to write well for fear of being libeled. I know that I deliberately didn't write as well as I could have. Tough is OK, but "jaded" is an attitude that will send students off to look for another teacher who isn't so jaded. I hate to reinforce what Tom said about students feeling like customers, but they really don't have much alternative with tuition as high as it is, and no one wants to pay $120 per class session to be treated like whiner or a liar or a crook, guilty til proven innocent.

So what's the flipside of the opening day speech? Tell us about some of your good students.

I've had a number of good students, Dave--thanks for asking! Just recently, one of the students wrote an excellent essay for me that explored how the Internet was changing how comics are being produced, an essay that both summarized the student's research and then went on to speculate how it might change even more in the future.

One of the very first classes I ever taught had a student whose first essay hit all my buttons. I can't remember exactly what the essay was about, but I think it argued something like homosexuality was evil and that Christians were discriminated against. I had to put the essay aside before I could evaluate it, because I knew that I couldn't let my personal feelings and opinions intrude in how I graded the actual construction of the essay. I knew that the student was testing me--her parents had warned her about those heathen liberal professors, and she was making sure I knew that she wasn't going to simply listen and nod along like a sheep. The problem was that the writing wasn't even that good--the writer had a number of grammatical mistakes, the structure was awkward, and the argumentation had a number of logical fallacies. Eventually, I was able to write just that on the essay, pointing out how she could have strengthened her case by strengthening her writing. That student ended up being my favorite student that semester, because even though we rarely agreed on political subjects, she did see that I could assist her in the course of instruction I was being paid for: writing. She was a pleasure to have in class because she could always be counted on to test people's opinions.

To return to the excuses speech, one of the reasons why I felt it necessary this semester was because our university has changed its policy on attendence this school year. The old attendenace policy was that 6 absences (out of a possible 28, or 21% of the class) was grounds for failure in the course (which emphasizes discussion and peer work, not simply individual achievement). With that kind of policy, I told students that all absences were the same: there was no difference between an "excused" or an "unexcused" absence. An absence was an absence. (Even so, students would present excuses to me, which I listened to and said, "Thanks for letting me know, but if you'll review the syllabus, you'll know it doesn't matter. An absence counts as an absence.") This year's policy forced us to change that--to recognize when an absence is "excused," and last semester I had to try to differentiate between the two. I also had the worst attendance problem I've ever had, where it was a rare class in which 25-40% of the students weren't missing. I was determined to not have the same issues this semester.

This may the be adjunct in me talking, but one of the reasons I gave this talk on the very first day of class was to give fair warning. As you say, students are customers, and what I presented on the first day was the syllabus and the warning label. If they didn't want to buy the product, they have the option to go back to the registrar and put my class back on the shelf and look into taking a different one. This semester, I had one student who took that option. The syllabus (which details the attendance policy) is a contract between the instructor and the student: I'm assuming that if you stay in the course after the first session, you agree to be bound by the contract.

At the wierd hippy school that I attended (Evergreen), faculty were encouraged to create "covenants" that acted like the contract you describe. You sign the document as well, so that the students realize that you understand that you have responsibilities to the class. We didn't have grades, so the covenant outlined what work the student had to do to earn the course credit.

"at the college level Professors teach one way. They stand at the front of the room and lecture."

This was not true in my experience as an undergraduate, graduate student, nor as an instructor. Sure, some professors teach like this, and some subjects lend themselves to this, but not all.

Besides which, even if it were true, by the time someone is in college, it's time to start taking some responsibility for their own education. College students are adults and by that point should know what works for them pedagogically and what doesn't and should work to develop some coping mechanisms if they happen to get stuck in a class where the prof's style doesn't fit their own. Personal growth -- it's a good thing.

I think you are all looking way to deep into what I said. I am just stating there could be other reasons why students' skip class. When a child doesn't do well in my classroom, I look at all the possible reasons for a lack of success. And of course I examine myself to see what I can do differently. I am not saying that your course, or the way in which you teach it is boring. I try and put myself in the shoes of the children I work with. I try to figure out what excites them, and what motivates them to learn. If I can figure that out than I can engage them in learning, they are excited about coming to school. I think that needs to continue into the college years. Again I am not saying that's not what your doing.

Have you ever thought that your class may be boring? I am an elementary school teacher and I remember my college courses as being the most boring experiences ever. N offense but in education we are talking about differentiated instruction, different styles of teaching and learning, but at the college level Professors teach one way. They stand at the front of the room and lecture. For someone who doesn't learn that way, it can become very frustrating. Just like not going to work because you hate your job, students' may not want to come to class because they simply hate the class. Before you place all the blame on the students' see what you are doing first, and see if your actions lead to absence. In all my years of college I never missed a class that I enjoyed.

Do you mean you think that my students were lying to me about why they were skipping class because they didn't want to hurt my feelings? "I didn't want to say this, Professor, but I just can't drag myself to class because it's boooooring."

The logic of your argument doesn't quite follow. At the beginning of the course, I make it perfectly clear what my expectations for attendance are, and even if I'm duller than Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, if you stay in the class past that, you've agreed to the attendance requirement. College and education isn't about being entertained--it's about learning. Sometimes you can combine the two, but sometimes it's just not possible.

Geof wrote, "Just like not going to work because you hate your job, students' may not want to come to class because they simply hate the class." And, just as when you stop going to work they fire your ass, students that stop going to class flunk. Hey, I know--I flunked three out of my first four college classes because I stopped going to class (and the reason I didn't attend wasn't because I was bored, although I may have been, but because I wasn't mature enough to understand this simple cause-effect relationship).

With that said, I don't believe my course was that dull, as the teacher evaluation forms never indicated that. Most students used that opportunity to complain about (a) the books I required them to read or (b) the amount/difficulty of assignments. But, really, I'd have to let a couple of my ex-students address that one head on as I'm not in a position to be objective on the subject.

And while on the one hand we might expect college-aged students to behave as adults and take responsibility for their own education, one can note on (with) the other hand that adults tend to accept only as much responsibility for their behavior as consequences dictate. True, a student who attends few of her or his classes is likely to fail (significant punishment for poor choices), but I immediately see two drawbacks to foisting a "sink or swim" decision on a student:

First, it is unlikely that most have ever had any real consequence result from failure in a class. "Social promotion", watered-down curriculum, and an almost endlessly forgiving system allows all but the most determined student to pass high school and move on to college with minimal intellectual or behavioral challenge. Second, the failing grades that result from poor performance are awarded long after the initial errors in judgement are committed. Without immediate consequence, most inappropriate behaviors are tacitly reinforced. When at long last the bill comes due, it is too late to change the behavior and the student may be lost to us.

If the university is truly in the business of educating its students, attendance policies, graded homework, and other annoyances should be part of the system. We are here to educate, not to keep the population happy.

I think that there's a big difference in expectations between grade school, high school, and college, though, Geof. I'm not disagreeing with you that learning is increased when the learner is motivated by what interests them, but what I do disagree with is that such motivation has to be entirely supplied by the teacher.

To return to the original subject of this--that is, the excuses I heard from students who were absent--let me reiterate that I wasn't surprised at people skipping classes. It happens, for a number of reasons, including boredom. Part of the point that I was trying to make for my students was that (a) you only hurt yourself by missing class and (b) don't lie to me about why you missed classes, because I've heard all of these lies before. Frankly, I was much less bothered that they skipped class than by the assumption that I would believe some of these lies. It was a writing class--a creative one--and at the very least, I wanted them to put some effort into the tall tale they were giving me if they felt that couldn't just simply admit they couldn't roll out of bed for class that day.

Is there a trend toward enforcing attendance in college/university courses? A few of my former (high-school) students have indicated that their attendance is monitored; in my undergraduate experience, no instructor seemed to care whether or not I was in class. One professor, however, assigned daily homework, and collected it at random intervals for credit. I never missed that class and earned top marks as a direct result of being there.

I have to deal with myriad absences in the courses I teach, even among those who are dedicated students, and I brush off excuses in much the same way as I suspect that Glen does--it doesn't matter *why* you did not attend, only that you were not here, and the consequence for that absence falls upon you, the student, not on me. You have a zero on the assignment until it is made up. If we have a test today, you take it, even if you were not here yesterday and feel unprepared. [What would you do otherwise? Go play in the hallway? I think not.] Of course, attached to the hard-line "just do it" policy is the opportunity to retake any test, any time, to prove mastery. In the face of all of these arguments, I get very little grief from students.

In support of Glen's point, I add this: a student who decides that he/she deserves a day off often fails to consider that other circumstances may later arise which force a student to be absent. Since every absence has a deleterious effect on learning, a wise student seeks to minimize the number of unnecessary absences so that those which are truly unavoidable have a minimal impact on the opportunity for success.

I do think there's a trend to better oversee attendance in college, especially in freshman/sophomore classes, as there's a clear correlation between attendance and success.

Also, when we were in college, Dan, I think there was more of a laissez-faire, let-god-sort-'em-out attitude among the professors, perhaps because we were attending a state school that, by mandate, had to admit the top 10% of every high school in the state, and thus had a real need to weed out the students. In contrast, the private university where I was teaching cost much, much more and had more invested in keeping every student enrolled and not losing them to a cheaper alternative.

Hate to bring back elementary aged students again, but I think we should place some blame on parents. Parents are doing a very poor job of preparing their children for an unsheltered life. I find at my level the home is not an extension of the classroom, it turns out my classroom is an extension of the home. I feel as if I am doing the job of parents. For example I am trying to teach my students that every decision you make in life whether good or bad will have consequences. I think college aged students who are not well prepared in decision making decide that missing a class will not have consequences. I myself went to a small private college "Elmira", and doing the math missing a class was financially devastating. Not only are you financially missing out, mom and dad aren't there to bail you out when the grades show up

I have to be careful when talking about children as I don't have any and don't plan to have any. However, I can understand your point, Geof. Perhaps it is related to a decrease overall in personal responsibility--rather than take responsibility for their actions, as a nation, we seem to be encouraging blaming others. This ranges from something as simple as taking the consequences for skipping class to the smoking lawsuits (is it really the cigarette's company fault for a person's lifetime of smoking?) .

How do we change that public dynamic?

You know I stumbled upon this web-site as a mistake, and I must say I 100% enjoy the thoughtful discussions that take place. Hope everyone had a Happy Turkey Day. I refuse to call it Thanksgiving because everyday should be a day to give thanks. Plus I think it is a joke that we have young children dress up like Pilgrims and Indians and tell them half truths about what really happened! But that discussion is for another time.

yeah these excuses suck and you need a better webcite who would read this boring stuff.