It's just not fair...

Apparently I have a lot to learn about being a professor. At least, that seems to be the opinion of some of my students. Specifically, I guess I haven't quite mastered the protocol surrounding post-exam activities.

As I mentioned previously, it's midterm time here at the U. And while the exams themselves are done and gone (at least in my classes), the trauma for the students has yet to subside. Students continue to wander the halls in a Red-Bull induced state of semi-consciousness, mumbling theorums and dates and equations to themselves as they drag themselves from one exam to the next. I thought I would be kind this year and schedule my midterms a little before the rest. Hell, I thought this might actually resort in exam scores that would be higher than the average.

Silly me.

Don't believe me? See my last post. But I digress.

Wanting to ease back into material after the exams, I decided that I would give a light lecture and then a small, in-class assignment to my Introductory classes. I had a couple of points of logic for this move, too. First and foremost, after a particularly disastrous showing on the midterm, I wanted to give them some points to soften the blow, so to speak. But it was my other motivation that became the issue--checking up on classroom attendance, or the lack thereof, in this case.

My attendance policy is simple. Attendance is mandatory, but I generally will not take attendance. Yes, I know that may sound a little odd. But the point is very simple: if you don't come to class, you won't pass the class. And as simple as that sounds, there are still students--an alarmingly high percentage of them, in fact--that don't seem to get that concept, despite the fact that on the first day of class, I tell them--point blank--that the only way to fail my class is not to show up. As I've said before, this class is not rocket science. In fact, it's anything but. I teach about simple concepts from everyday life, presented in a manner tailored to the layperson. I know that for many of my students, this will be the first and last class they take in this field, and I teach it accordingly. But I also work under the assumption that college students (even first year college students), shouldn't have to have to be cajoled into coming to class. Maybe this makes me optimistic. Or maybe it makes me naive. And while I don't like using in-class assignments, pop-quizzes and the like as punishments for those who don't come, I'm certainly not above it.

Enter the current controversy. In a effort to get students to think critically about a new topic, I planned an in-class assignment for them, in which they would provide practical applications for and analysis of a new topic. The "problem" (at least, the problem for some of them), was that I administered this particular assignment in the class session immediately following the midterm exam. In addition, it was unannounced, and anyone who missed it, missed it, without the chance to make it up except in the case of a documented, excused absence.

For my regular attenders, this assignment provided 20 relatively easy points. For those with documented absences, this was also an opportunity for 20 relatively easy points. For the Visitors, and others who assumed that post-exam attendance was optional, this was an outrage! A travesty! And in the words of one of my students, it was "just not fair."

Not fair. Hmm.

Not ten minutes after the class ended, the first of the emails rolled in. Bad news travels fast, and I think some of the regulars took great delight in telling the Visitors what they had missed. Some of the emails had apologies, some had excuses. And a few were actually rude. But the ultimate reaction came to me in person. At the beginning of the next class session, a student approached the podium and told me--point blank--that he believed it was unfair that I give an assignment on the day after the midterm. At first, I didn't know how to respond. Never mind that he didn't quite get the concept that I ran the class, and not him, but he had the nerve to actually sound pissed off. It took all of my will power not to kick him out in a decidedly unpolite way.

I know I was not the model student as a freshman in college. And part of the reason why poor attendance drives me crazy is because I learned first hand what can happen to one's GPA when classes get skipped. But I never would have even dreamed of questioning a professor's right to teach the class in the manner he or she saw fit.

I suppose I shouldn't let it bother me so much, as I know there's nothing I can do to change it. But it doesn't mean I have to like it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a pop quiz to write.