Monday, January 21, 2013

Letters Never Sent, Part 4

Dear Sickly Sue:

Of course I can overlook your first assignment’s lateness, because you’re so very sick with the flu, so sick that you are on some serious medication your doctor just prescribed you.  No problem!  In fact I’ll even waive the requirement that you bring me a doctor’s excuse, which you didn’t get because you “forgot”.  When you recover from your debilitating condition, and if you still can’t get that excuse for whatever reason, why don’t you just bring your prescription bottles to my office? Or just take a pic of them with your phone and forward the pics to me? You did know, of course, that prescription bottles always have a date on them to indicate when they were filled. They also contain the name of the drug and the doctor that prescribed them. I’m sure you still have these bottles, since you are still so sick, and I’m sure the labels will indicate that they contain medicine prescribed this past weekend, for the kind of thing that doctors usually prescribe for the flu.  Tamiflu, cough syrup with codeine, etc. 

Don’t worry if you forget that too…I intend to remind you that I need to see them if you want to avoid the late penalty.  But when I ask for them, or the pictures, if you make up some dumb excuse I will know you are twice a liar.  That you lied about your initial illness, and you lied about why you don’t have the letter/prescriptions.  And if you are lying, I will not only penalize you with the standard grade off for lateness, but I will take off another grade as well.  This is known as the “liar’s penalty”.  It’s not written into the syllabus, but trust me, I will take off that extra grade and I will make it stick. 

Feel better soon.



[+]

Dear Distracted Donna,

Yes, I know that you did not pass my sophomore survey in part because of your low participation grade.  I understand that you are confused, because you keep insisting that you “don’t see how that could happen,” but let me repeat for you here practically verbatim from the syllabus as to how I figure your participation grade. 

Unfortunately for you, Distracted Donna, I do not pull grades out of my ass.  If I did they would smell better.  Instead, I use something called “math”.  Have you heard of it?  Well, your participation grade is all math.  I count the number of your absences and divide them by the number of classes.  I immediately take this number off of 100, which is the highest possible participation grade.  You missed seven times out of thirty.  That means that even if you came with your book, paid attention, and answered every question right every single time you attended, you would still only receive a 76.7 for your participation grade.  However you did not come with your book every time, you never answered questions correctly, and you spent a good portion of class time staring off into space or writing notes to the person next to you.  So you get a 25 for participation, Donna. Please be sure to sign up for this class again with another professor. 

Thanx.

[+]

Dear Brown-nosing Barbara,

How nice that you loved the week’s lesson.  I’m glad you enjoyed all the reading assignments, and that you learned so much.  You should know that emailing me this effusion right after you completely bombed the first quiz has had absolutely zero effect on your grade.  In fact, by the time you wrote me that email, I’d already entered your F. 

32 comments:

  1. I just tell them the first day of class that I expect them to be creative with their excuses -- I take no homework-eating dogs no more -- since I assume that they will use their God (sive substantiam sive naturam) given right to lie to a professor. But, unless they bring the homework or submit it online before the beginning of the class they will count as absent.
    (I explain them too that the most learning I made in college was done in bars, so I understand their predicament. They look so cutely disoriented!)

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  2. I just tell them the first day of class that I expect them to be creative with their excuses -- I take no homework-eating dogs no more -- since I assume that they will use their God (sive substantiam sive naturam) given right to lie to a professor. But, unless they bring the homework or submit it online before the beginning of the class they will count as absent.
    (I explain them too that the most learning I made in college was done in bars, so I understand their predicament. They look so cutely disoriented!)

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  3. Conveying the sound of thunderous applause.

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  4. Would Distracted Donna have passed if she got 76.7%? How much would have been enough to pass? The student may have a point: the grade reduction is very large and may seem calculated rather arbitrarily. Unfortunately, should the student learn to come to class and bring the book, she may not necessarily learn the right lesson. She may just learn that presenteism and passive compliance are rewarded. What if she simply became the weak student or class troublemaker who never misses a class or forgets the book at home?

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    1. Participation is a factor of being in class and...well...participating. You can't particpate on days you do not attend, hence the reduction to a "C" on their participation grade if they miss that many absences. The compliance is not "passive" in that the rest of the loss was due to her inability to come prepared and stay on task.

      My attendance policy is intended to help week students develop discipline, And I do not have class troublemakers.

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    2. But how exactly did a C end up further reduced to as little as 25%? It is that further reduction that I don't understand. How was it calculated? I understand that the C was further reduced because even on the days when the student was in class, her participation was far from exemplary. However, if getting something below 76.7% but higher than 25% would possibly have allowed the student to pass, if barely, I can see why the student may have some questions. If that's what would have made the difference between passing and failing the course, the grade wouldn't have been great, anyway. However, in that case, I can see why the student may feel that she may have deserved to pass the course, especially since the evaluation that sealed her fate was of a rather subjective nature (an estimate of how much to deduct on top of the prorated deduction for absences as opposed to something like deducting x points for each wrong answer on a test, for example).

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    3. Okay, I will do the math for you. Students cannot get participation credit on days they are not in class, so a student absent about 25% of the time will receive a maximum participation grade of 75%.

      Now, let's say for that 75% of the time that the student was in class, they are only prepared for class and answer questions a third of the time. This means that they would only earn a third if tge 75%, or 25% overall, of the participation grade.

      As for how I assign that aspect, I have a seating chart with all the students' names on it, and when I ask them questions, and they don't answer correctly, they get a minus by their name. If they don't have a book they get a minus by their name, etc.

      Show up, pay attention, or go the fuck home. Or take someone else's class, Chumley.

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  5. For the first one, I don't think you're allowed to ask to see someone's prescription bottles. Privacy laws and the univ. getting sued... or some shit. "Here's my fax number, call the doctor's office and have them fax a note to me saying they saw you".

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    1. I say, "Another possibility is if you'd like to present your prescription bottles instead of the required doctor's excuse. You don't have to do this but if you'd prefer that than going back to the doctor..." Totally up to them.

      And I don't allow excuses just for being "seen" by a doctor. The doctor has to indicate that the student was not capable of working or coming to school.

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    2. What if the student really was ill but the nature of the illness is very embarrassing, so she pretended that she "only" got the flu? If no diagnosis is provided, the type of doctor or medicine may provide a hint. You may say that lateness penalty rules apply to everybody who does not make a case for an allowable exception. However, adding a "liar penalty" for not having disclosed an embarrassing condition or its treatment is not fair.

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    3. Personally, I don't care what the student has. I'm not interested. All I need is a note from a doctor saying that the student was unable to work from such-and-such dates, etc. It doesn't have to have a diagnosis. The less I know, the better. Like I want to hear about their anal cysts or whatall.

      If a student wants an extension because they claim they were ill, and says they were at the doctor's office, and then they squirm when asked to provide proof, then 99% of the time they're lying. The honest students will provide an excuse. The ones fishing around for sympathy, not so much.


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    4. But do they really get an extra penalty for lying? I suppose that was just a joke.

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    5. Monica, I'm confused by your confusion. Why shouldn't there be an extra penalty for lying? Or is it passé where you are to hold students accountable for their behavior?

      Good for you, Stella.

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    6. Because it is perfectly possible that the student did not have the flu but actually had some embarrassing problem. Not providing some kind of extension or refusing to waive the regular late penalty is one thing, and I have no problem with that. Penalizing the student for pretending that her disease or problem was just the flu when it may have been a miscarriage, severe diarrhea, a mental health issue (or being committed for evaluation in case she had one), an object that got stuck into some orifice under some odd circumstances, being stuck on the toilet seat or between two buildings, getting arrested or some other such thing is just not fair.

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    7. Soooo... if it's embarrassing I'm allowed to lie? I am still dealing with a student who forged medical excuses. If he forged it because he was embarrassed that the REAL reason he missed class was because he got arrested (well, forgery IS a felony!), then I should only penalize him for missing class and not for forging medical notes?

      Sorry, can't agree.

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    8. It may be a disciplinary matter for the competent university authorities. As a professor, you just have to give him the grade he earned, even if you also report the student to those in charge of discipline. It's a matter of principle. I realize that the discipline may end up being more severe than a grade penalty.

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    9. Well, my Uni allows Proffies to impose grade sanctions, as well as requiring us to refer students to higher authorities for further sanctions (basically, expulsion on the second offense).

      The Uni defines falsification of attendance as an academic integrity issue, and includes in the description of violations:

      "...Signs an attendance sheet for another student, allows another student to sign on the student's behalf, or OTHERWISE PARTICIPATES IN GAINING CREDIT FOR ATTENDANCE FOR ONESELF OR ANOTHER WITHOUT ACTUALLY ATTENDING ..." A false excuse is, in effect, "gaining of credit for attendance" without attending.

      Ad as Stella remarks below, doctor notes, if you don't 'forget' to get them will only say that they advised the student not to attend school, not why.

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  6. A miscarriage will get you a doctor's note. Severe diarrhea will also get you a doctor's note. Being committed to a mental hospital will as well get you a doctor's note. So will getting something stuck up your ass. In my experience, doctors don't write "Fred Smith is excused from work for three days because he shoved a light bulb up his ass". They don't have to write anything about the diagnosis at all.

    And if you get stuck on the toilet seat, or get arrested, take your late penalty and don't fucking lie to me.

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  7. One of the post-secondary schools I attended had an honor code. It was hammered into me before arriving on campus and also during my first few weeks on campus. If I had lied to a proffie about having been at the doctor's office, then I would have thanked my lucky stars if I'd been discovered and received a punishment as lenient as Stella's "liar's penalty." Even today when I am talking with an old friend from that school, it is not unusual for me to identify someone by saying, "He was the one who got expelled for lying to Dr. Smith about that math test." And that's enough for my friend to know who I'm talking about. Decades later, we might not remember much from the curriculum, but we sure as hell fucking remember the honor violations.

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    1. Believe it or not, even though I seem to always want students to get the benefit of the doubt, I would actually support such a system as long as the rules are perfectly clear and the lies are clearly proven. It's when decisions are based on judgment, estimates and other subjective elements that I tend to have questions and doubts.

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    2. The absence of evidence is still evidence, especially when the doctor's note could be easily faxed to my department, or from our own health center, which is about 200 feet away from my office.

      But consider this example:

      If my husband insists he's going to Atlanta on a business trip, and when he returns I ask him for the receipts for our taxes and he evades about providing them, what does that mean? What does it mean if I ask him outright to show me the receipts, because they aren't showing up on any of our credit card statements, and he again refuses?

      Whatever he was doing or not doing in Not-Atlanta (fucking someone else, nurturing an unbeknownst-to-me gambling addiction, receiving training as a covert operator for the CIA), and despite the lack of "evidence", I know one thing:

      He's lying.



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    3. Maybe his manager just drove him in his car or paid for his expenses. If he has no manager, maybe a friend took him there, he lived with friends and there were no receipts (he may have given some cash to his friends for their trouble). That may be fairly unlikely. The point is that every time you base a decision on what seems likely or unlikely to be true, there is a small chance of being unfair to someone whose activities or circumstances are unusual. Unlike your husband, your student is probably not someone you know so well that the probability of error in such decisions is nearly zero. Why risk being unfair once in a while to one student when you can simply avoid the whole business of judging excuses? For instance, you could refuse to grade any late work or to ever waive the lateness penalty. To be fair to those students who may deserve it, you could offer the opportunity of grading the late work or waiving the penalty at the end of the semester if and only if no other work was ever late during the whole semester and it could make a difference grade-wise. Or maybe you could simply accept one late assignment with no penalty, no questions asked, with the understanding that the late penalty will apply next time and each time thereafter. Other professors may have better ideas along the same lines. That would eliminate the need to judge who is lying and who is not and to penalize students for lying.

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    4. My immediate thought upon reading this is that you don't know what it's like to have a husband, or any students, either.

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    5. But why isn't it better to just remove the whole issue of having to judge excuses? It's not just my idea. Many professors prefer that.

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    6. This is an interesting thread, considering that these were letters NEVER SENT.

      Some comments:
      1. When we reach the point where there ARE no "decisions ... based on judgment, estimates and other subjective elements," then thinking humans will not be required to make them; machines will be able to do all of our decision making.

      2. It is the LYING that is despicable - most of us accept (whatever we define as) reasonable excuses, provided there is (whatever we define as) reasonable evidence.

      3. All of the excuses Monica is providing - whether for husband or student, would be be easily verified.

      4. When PROFFIES start making excuses for STUDENTS, it's time for Slim Pickens to take a ride on that big ol' missile, get Armageddon started and put us all out of our misery.

      5. Stella, you da boss!

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    7. I suspect that somebody accidentally mailed "Letters Never Sent, Part 3". I further suspect that Stella's husband discovered that the letters were sent and so he drove to Atlanta to beg the postmaster to intervene and prevent the letters from being delivered. Thus, the letters were sent, but not delivered. And, finally, I suspect that those letters (Part 3) will be published here at CM next week--and that the letters will be full of indictments, horrors, and scuttlebutt!

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    8. Bubba--

      Part 3 was planned, but then redacted temporarily to allow me to recover and settle myself after the harrowing trauma recounted therein. I should have renumbered but I was simply too terrorized by the experience to think properly. I'm still not quite over it.

      But no, it was never sent.

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  8. Stella, if your husband ever takes a trip to Atlanta, please let me know. I think I love you. At the very least, I greatly respect you.

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    1. Though I have wed far above my station, it seems my husband is not inclined to go to Atlanta anytime soon.

      But I will write you in on the waiting list after Bubba.

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  9. Oh, Stella. I was so thrilled about the prescription bottle photo idea, but I know my university would have my ass. They would for the liar's penalty too. Nevertheless, I bow down before you.

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