Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Or, as I like to modify it:
Lack of attention/responsibility on your part does not constitute justification for glaring at me for an hour and 15 minutes as you struggle with your test.
I truly think partly why my own generation achieved new heights in procrastination is because we were let off on certain things - it was the beginning of the downslide in our culture's treatment of failure or at least not measuring up or not meeting commitments.
OK sure, it does drive me absolutely fucking crazy when people don't do what they're supposed to do and always has and this perspective would be Pretty Danged Difficult to get out of my head after all these years, but also I might help a few people of the current generation to know that they cannot always blow stuff off with impunity. The hope is that maybe it will make them slightly more responsible but really more and more all they do is whine and get angry.
If it weren't for our absence policy I swear I'd just let them hang themselves. On average it would take them all at least another 1-2 semesters to get through French with passing grades and that way I'd be doing a service to the department and the university, too. Students could blow shit off to their hearts' content and the university would be getting more money from each AND educators' sanity might come off the endangered species list.
Win-win right?
Alas 'tis but a dream... for now.
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