Halfway through last term, I received an e-mail from a student lamenting that he had been unable to attend my class for the previous eight weeks. His reason was fairly singular. For the sake of argument (and student privacy), we'll give him (more) made-up excuses. Last term, he said to me that "he had lost his right arm and had spent the term in physical therapy." This was after having "survived a wild groundhog attack" the previous term in a colleague's class, and having brought "a note from his chiropractor explaining he'd misplaced a vertebrae, and it had taken nine weeks to find it in the cushion of his couch."
You can imagine my surprise then - my sheer and utter joy - on receiving an e-mail from that same student today informing me that he had again "lost his right arm and spent the term in physical therapy." That's right, my darlings, he gave me the exact same preposterous excuse he gave me last term. Moreover, he sent me the
exact same e-mail.
Now, lest we venture into the realm of Rate Your Students, here's my real gripe: when I pointed this out to the Powers that Be, their response was essentially "We should make sure the student passes your class so we can get him therapy."
Yes.
Yes, that is what I'm here for. To pass anyone so long as they have a reason for not doing any work or coming to any class that includes the following:
- words
- what? you want more than words? Alright. They should be in English.
Seriously, who needs standards? Not me. This has got to be one of my biggest gripes about (what I perceive to be) life at an SLAC: the mistaken notion that student retention is about keeping any one who has had the word student used for them rather than making sure those who really want to be students have the opportunity to be.
Argh.
