If Only

Sometimes students handle situations so stupidly/badly that I must be a hard-ass when, in fact, I would have ignored or not punished the behavior if only the students had demonstrated more sense. For example, this past weekend, a student emailed me to explain that she had just agreed to adopt a puppy from an idiot neighbor. The irresponsible owner had allowed her female to get pregnant, didn't want to be bothered with the puppies, and announced to the neighborhood that she was driving them to the pound. Eliana and her friends decided to each adopt one. Because the idiot neighbor didn't want the puppies interfering with Thanksgiving dinner, she insisted that Eliana and her friends take them now at 4 weeks old. The puppies will need bottle feeding, so Eliana asked if she could bring hers to class so that she could take care of this responsibility on campus. She promised the puppy would remain in her purse.

Now what was the mistake? Emailing me, of course! I'm a dog lover; I believe that Eliana is trying to do a humane thing in a world often cruel to animals. But because I know about the dog's presence, I cannot allow it. I doubt that anyone in the room has such severe allergies to pet dander that the puppy will cause an asthma attack, but because it might, I can't say, "Sure, Eliana, bring your little doggie to class," in an email saved to the college server. If only she had just brought the damn dog hidden in her purse, then I wouldn't have to start quoting college policy. If the puppy began barking or wimpering, Eliana could have apologized then.

I had another student try to have a temper tantrum in class as I was returning graded work. I had marked "zero points" on the score sheet for a part of the assignment that was missing. All the rest of the work I had stapled together. Kristopher cried, "But I did do that part!" as he waved a separate sheet of paper in the air rather than pointing to anything in the stapled packet I had overlooked.

"If you had given that to me last week when it was due, it would be stapled with everything else," I explained.

"This isn't fair! I deserve those points. My work is right here. You're the second professor who has lost one of my papers this week!"

Maybe Kristopher did finish that portion on time but forgot to include it with all of the other pieces that he submitted—I have had him run out to his car half a dozen times this semester to fetch something that was due, and he returned in 5 minutes with the assignment. Maybe he didn't finish that portion until after I collected the work, hoping that feigned indignation would buy an extension today. Maybe he had indeed given me the piece. My office isn't in a wind tunnel, and I am very organized. But I am also human and might have stapled it with another student's work.

"You are not being fair," he said again as he stomped out after I dismissed class.

I didn't budge because Kristopher wasn't behaving like someone legitimately aggrieved. He was instead acting like a 4-year-old who wanted his bowl of ice cream immediately, even though a pile of carrots still lay on his dinner plate. If the error really had been mine—and I admit the possibility—he should have stopped by my office to discuss the matter instead of ranting in a classroom full of fellow students. If only he had met with me privately to say, "Really, Professor Lightbulb, I gave you that piece last week. I understand that you might not believe me, but I just want to say that I did turn it in," I would have taken the work and credited his score sheet.

The third student made a big enough blunder that I withdrew him. I had already warned Julio—per college policy—that he had too many absences and too much missing work. Then he missed another Tuesday and the following Thursday sent an email explaining that St. Cloud was under a tornado watch [as was all of Central Florida], it was raining really hard [so hard, in fact, that my shoes and pants didn't dry out until noon], so he wouldn't be in class again but did want to know if I had graded all of his late work. I curtly replied that I hadn't received any late work and that if he didn't hand deliver hard copies by 2 p.m. that day, I was withdrawing him.

Of course he never came. I waited until today before I withdrew him—long after the tornado watch had expired—but I did have to do it. Experience has taught me that when a student in the research class doesn't do all of the little assignments leading up to the big paper, they are either recycling a paper from another class or procuring the work in some other academically dishonest way. Perhaps Julio was just way behind. If only he had admitted that fact, promised to spend all of Thanksgiving break catching up, and brought me the work next week, I would have accepted it. But believing that I should be satisfied if he just claimed he did the work was unforgivably bad behavior.

If only students had the sense to manipulate their instructors more intelligently, both their lives and mine would be less frustrating!