What is your favorite excuse for skipping class?
Maybe you’re not a morning person, and that makes every class held before noon a challenge for you to attend. Maybe you’ve worked yourself into an elaborate state of denial, thinking that you already know all of the material that could ever be taught. Or maybe you just don’t care, as you could list off a thousand other things you’d rather be doing than taking notes on a warm spring afternoon.
Whatever the excuse may be, you should know that professors are aware of them all. Trying to convince a professor that you’ve been “sick” for the last five classes is neither creative nor believable. This devious attempt to escape the consequences of your absence can be very transparent, especially if telling white lies has never been your strong suit.
As a result, the effort used while trying to preserve your good name quickly turns into an awkward exchange between you and someone who probably already holds a level of skepticism for college students’ excuses.
If a professor is savvy enough to detect your deception, which most of them are, it’s understandable when they don’t grant you an extension for your already-late term paper, or allow you an extra week to study for an exam that everyone else took days ago.
After all, it would be unfair to the rest of the students who managed to prepare for and take the test on the day it was scheduled.
When it comes to the students who can’t be bothered with sitting through class, professors should not be too concerned by it, nor should they take it personally. As young adults, we all have the ability to decide whether or not attending class will be worthwhile in the long run.
If some students don’t wish to take advantage of their time at Fairfield by academically bettering themselves, it’s ultimately their loss.
It’s not the responsibility of the professor to make sure that students are present. Rather, students need to be accountable for their own education. If they choose not to put in a sufficient amount of effort, they then need to be willing to accept their final grade for what it is.
There are times when missing class is justified, in which case teachers should be open to a student’s honest explanation regarding why she wasn’t there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work this way.
A student who recently missed class due to a funeral wasn’t allowed to make up a quiz until she acquired a note from the presiding priest. Rather than making a student go out of her way to provide evidence in support of her absence, you would think that a professor would offer a few words of sympathy.
It seems as though the students who never grace the rest of the class with their presence have not only weakened their own credibility, but the credibility of those who actually have legitimate reasons for missing a class every once in a while.
While I believe that teachers should promote fairness in the classroom by not granting extensions and extra time to someone who doesn’t deserve it, I also believe that a basic sense of communication and trust should exist between professors and students, especially when the situation calls for it.
Teachers should use their discretion wisely when differentiating between students who never miss a class and the students who haven’t shown up since the first week of the semester. At this point in the school year, it should be fairly obvious to both professors and students as to the notorious absentees.
If you walk into a classroom and fail to recognize the person sitting in the back row who doesn’t have a notebook or writing implement, you’ve probably spotted one.
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