March Madness

As the tales below will illustrate, I have hit the point this semester where I just don't care any longer if I lose a teaching moment.

Right before the withdrawal deadline, I make my students do an admittedly corny in-class assignment which I call The Midterm Reality Check. They fill out a form to determine their current average and write a paragraph explaining what they will do to maintain or improve that average by semester's end. When a student says, "Professor Lightbulb, I can't find Reading Quiz 3," I get to say, "That's because you weren't here the day we took it, so put a zero in the box," demonstrating to the entire class the correlation between attendance and success. I like making students do the math themselves rather than bugging me with a "How am I doing in this class?" I like having the bad students reflect on what behaviors got them into their pickle; I like letting the good students with high marks in all their boxes watch the bad students scramble to make the math work in their favor.

Bryan, always the first to finish—but also the most likely to lose significant points for failing to follow directions—brought me his form, ready to escape the prison which is my class. His average thus far was a 63. I said, "Thanks" and let him go. I should have pointed out that his desire to rush out every day contributed to his low number, but I didn't.

Back in my office, I found an email inbox full of messages, two of them from my most frustrating student, Roderick. This young man is empty handed when work is due, but excuses tumble out of his mouth like presents from Santa's sack. The first email asked for a letter of recommendation for a scholarship. Roderick is not empty headed; he is bright and creative, just undisciplined. I could frame him as full of potential in the letter I was considering writing. A few more messages down the list, I got Roderick's second email, this one explaining that he would be missing yet another class for another unbelievable reason. I returned to the first email to say that I don't write letters of recommendation for students with F averages. I should have explained that the deciding factor was the second email with yet another lame excuse for his missing warm body and/or homework, but I then asked myself, Why bother?

Later that day, I sent midterm averages to my online students. Katherine wrote back to protest a zero. She claimed that she did in fact post a response to our first cyber discussion. I checked the board but found no post. I looked for the automatically generated email copy that the service sends when a student hits "Submit" but found no email. I searched her virtual folder for the .doc copy she was supposed to send "just in case" but found no copy. I wrote back that I had no evidence of the missing work, so the zero would stay in my gradebook.

Oh, claimed Katherine, it was saved on her home computer. She couldn't understand why I didn't have it. Of course, she neglected to send this "saved" copy with her protestation, for she won't actually write it unless I ask to see it. I explained that I do not take discussion responses late, and the zero would stay.

You're being so unfair, Katherine replied. Why, she even sent a draft of her discussion response to her aunt to proofread, and the timestamp on that email showed that she had written it before the deadline. She did not, however, forward this sent email to me and missed a third opportunity to send me her "saved" copy.

I held firm. Zero, Katherine. Part of me wanted to explain the strategies that she could have used to make her story more believable. For example, she could have inquired about this January assignment in early February: "Professor Lightbulb, when am I getting a grade for the first cyber discussion?" I would have scrambled to find it, assuming that I was at fault and taken anything she sent. Or she could have written it and attached it to the first email, hoping that if she immediately produced the work I would believe it was written long ago. But waiting for a cue that I would accept it before she even bothered to write it was misplayed. I hate when students lie to me and refuse any grace in such situations. I wanted to write, "Katherine, sweetheart, I have taught college longer than you have lived. Such amateur tricks don't work on me," but I was too over it all to bother.