With the exception of names being changed to protect----well, to protect our identities, I am copying the following e-mail word for word. I just received it.
Hi Professor Bella,
I am Contacting you to let you know that I will be missing the first 1 or 2 weeks of class due to the fact that I will be getting surgery the week before, So I thought it was in my interest to let you know this information ahead of time.
Sincerely,
I am an Idiot
Ugh! You are not alone. I get these e-mails often, along with the ones about not having the textbook two or three weeks into class. I had a run a while back of pregnant women who were due to go into labor 6 or 7 weeks into an 8 week class and wanting to know how I was going to accommodate them.
ReplyDeleteYour speshul kid didn't even specifically ask for an extension, so that makes it easy for you. I would just adopt a pleasant, positive tone when I inform her that she will lose X number of points for missing those two weeks, and I sure hope she gets well soon.
I wonder why nobody has said to the mothers-to-be that maybe pregnancy and caring for a newborn is enough of a challenge to merit a reduction in other activities.
DeleteReplying to Lucy: The cynical part of my brain says that the mothers-to-be are relying on the financial aid they'll receive from 'attending' these classes to meet the expenses associated with caring for the newborn in question.
Delete--Jess, disillusioned financial aid officer
I'd want to know what kind of surgery before I judged. Some kinds can not be put off until winter break...
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, I get these too. The ones I hate are when the student's family scheduled vacation (!WTF!) during the semester....
Those always get me, too. I've been known to remind them, politely, that they are over eighteen, and, whatever their parents scheduled, have the choice of not going along.
DeleteAnd yes, what kind of surgery matters, which leads to a dilemma, since I don't really want to know the details. All too often, it's something elective. On the other hand, "elective" these days all too often means scheduled at the surgeon's convenience, not the patient's, so scheduling during a vacation may not be an option. But even in such circumstances, a sentence or so of apology and explanation (even if it's a bit TMI) at the beginning of the email, and a question at the end that assumes at least partial responsibility for dealing with the situation ("is there anything I can do now to get a head start on the semester?") would go a long way toward making me more sympathetic, and hence more helpful. This kid may just be a bad email-writer, but (s)he sounds like (s)he's dumping the situation in the proffie's lap, with no attempt at meeting halfway.
DeleteWhile I am sympathetic to legitimate student health problems, you have correctly identified this illiterate fool as an idiot. Perhaps you should encourage this fool to take the whole semester off?
ReplyDeleteAnd to answer your question, Bella: I'd be inclined to answer the question the student didn't ask ("what can I do now to get a head start on the class?") and send back a list of things that will be due within the first 2-3 weeks of class, with some description of what can and can't be accomplished on the student's own. We do a good deal of foundational reading in the first few weeks, so I'd spell that out. If I had a not-yet-updated copy of an early assignment or two lying around, I might even send those along, with the warning that the directions might change a bit. And I'd end with a warning that it's a fast-moving class, and we do a lot of foundational work in the first few class sessions, and that, for that reason, the student might want to consider taking it another semester. Since the class I teach is offered online, I might also mention that option. In short, my only slightly between-the-lines message would be "you're still responsible for the work, and there's a helluva lot of it."
ReplyDeleteI second Cassandra -- and if your department/university has an "excusable absence" policy when students have a documented medical excuse, you might want to point that out as well. But of course the emphasis is on aaaalll the important stuff Idiot will be missing along with hir responsibility to plow through it solo until such time as zhe can show up to class.
DeleteIdiot didn't ask you to repsond, so why should you? And if you had been asked to respond, why not wait until the course begins? Maybe Idiot will have keeled over by then.
ReplyDeleteI structure courses so that I don't have to listen to or consider any of the stupid fabrications flakes like Idiot decide to whine about.
worse of all, this student probably thinks " Professor Bella is going to be so impressed that I took the trouble to let her know in advance that I'm gonna need all kinds of accomodation!!!
ReplyDeleteYou guys really nailed it: of course I care/take into account serious health issues. But this student appears to think I will do all the work for him/her in helping her catch up, and that she (dammit, SHE) deserves a medal or something for letting me know she will miss the first two weeks.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of the Cassandra approach outlined above, tempered with all the the advice given above. I don't have to respond (I put my auto reply on, dammit, and I don't come "on contract" until late August----sorry, and I feel immense guilt that I have a contract like that at all with so many of you fine folks in dire straights----but with my college being the touchy feely place that it is, I want to do just enough for this student to not get myself in trouble.) I think I'll send her the syllabus---I'm a pussy so it is actually already done, point out to her the extensive reading schedule she should begin NOW since she'll be in a surgery induced stupor, no doubt, later, and tel her to read the attendance policy, which is very clear. I worry that will clue her in to begin begging to be excluded from that policy, which I am thinking she's assuming she will just automatically get excluded. They all think their special circumstances will automatically get them special treatment, as we all know. And who knows what this surgery is, anyway?
Funny, because as someone noted above, most of us, and definitely including myself, will accomodate a hard working student with a real problem. It is just the way this is presented makes me feel like what I actually have here is something very different.
*delete*
ReplyDelete