Throughout my years at Auburn, I have taken a variety of courses. For the most part, my experience in each has been unique. Nevertheless, at some point, all of my professors, including those who mandated attendance, uttered an imperative along the following lines: “Don’t come to class if you’re sick.”
To avoid losing points for being absent with an illness, they say, “just get a doctor’s note.” In other words, “just” squirm out of bed, trudge to your car, sluggishly drive to the med clinic and finally obtain an excuse from your doctor, who tells you to get some rest.
By the time you get home and crawl back into bed, the day is almost over. You feel sicker than before, and you have no medicine. Most importantly, you were unable to rest. It was all for nothing; you would have been better off if you sacrificed 50 minutes to go to class.
But at least your professor knows you weren’t playing hooky.
The rationale supporting the “doctor’s note policy” is sound. Professors believe this approach is fair because it prevents students from lying about their condition. While this is true, there are plenty of other considerations to account for.
Let’s imagine that a professor trusts his students and accepts all of their justifications for missing class. Although most would tell the truth, there would undoubtedly be a few liars. This would become obvious when certain students accumulate dozens of excused absences, yet return to class in perfect health. Such an outcome might impel the professor to adopt the “doctor’s note policy” as a preventative measure.
However, such a reaction is excessive. There is a simpler way to prevent unscrupulous students from exploiting the honor system. Namely, once a student reaches a set number of absences, they should be forced to submit a certified excuse for missing future classes. This will discourage skipping, and it will reward the majority for their honesty, allowing them to rest when necessary.
Admittedly, this approach lends itself to occasional dishonesty, and a valid argument can be made that any dishonesty is impermissible. With this in mind, some may contend that the “doctor’s note policy,” despite its inconvenience, is the only just means of imposing mandatory attendance.
In my opinion, it is difficult to refute this point.
But instead of holding all students to such authoritarian expectations, professors should expunge their attendance policies altogether.
College courses are meant to assess a student’s competency in a particular subject, not their ability to show up to class. Unless one is enrolled in Punctuality 101, their attendance should bear no weight on their final grade. As long as a student performs sufficiently well on exams and other assignments, they should be awarded a passing grade, regardless of whether they taught themselves the material or learned it through lectures.
Whenever I make this point in conversation, I am typically met with the counter that my future employer won’t tolerate excessive absence. This point is so vacuous that it brings me a faint sense of rage.
Employees are judged almost entirely by their performance in the workplace. After their shift, they can go home, relax and forget about their duties until the next day.
Contrarily, students are judged by their understanding of specific topics. This is maximized through consistent studying and practice, which, for the most part, take place outside of the classroom.
These differing circumstances highlight the false equivalence found in the student-employee analogy, which incorrectly equates a day at work to a day in the classroom.
Instead, the comparison should be drawn between a day at work and an intense study session. Not showing up to one’s job is tantamount to not studying for an exam; an employee who repeatedly calls in sick is incapable of fulfilling their assigned role, just as an idle student is incapable of attaining passing marks.
So, in reality, by completing homework and ensuring that they are prepared for exams, students are effectively showing up to work on time every day.
If this is accomplished, why does it matter if they miss a few classes?
Moreover, professors may find that mandatory attendance is the best way to reward the hardest workers, who never miss class.
I’m not sure that this is an accurate characterization. Perhaps students who are often absent tend to stay up late finishing lengthy assignments, whereas punctual students sometimes turn in incomplete work so that they can go to sleep early. Although the latter attend class more frequently, the former dedicate as much, if not more time to their coursework.
Can we accurately claim that one group works harder than the other?
In addition, professors can still reward attendance without requiring it. For example, bonus points can be granted to those who are present in a designated percentage of classes. Unlike mandatory attendance, this system does not punish those who prefer to learn at home.
Students should only be expected to have a university-approved excuse if they miss an exam, quiz or other in-class assignment that was scheduled in advance. Unfortunately, an honor system would prove ineffective in this situation, as prideless students could easily feign illness in order to receive an extension, which is untenable.
College is nothing like a full-time job. Some weeks, students face an absurd workload, which requires them to spend late nights and early mornings buried in a mound of textbooks, yearning for a moment of relaxation. At other times, such as the week after exams, they may have no work at all.
I’m not arguing that college is harder than work; I’m rather noting that the latter is relatively consistent, whereas the former is often erratic and unpredictable, making it necessary to have a flexible schedule.
Attaining this would be significantly easier without needless attendance requirements.
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