Okay, this is a minor rant.
In one of my courses, students have to write a project proposal for a project they do. I make this assignment on the FIRST day of class (which was August 18th, this year). They have about a month to do them. I kept talking about the proposals, reminding them of them, reminding them of the "firm" due date of the start of class on the 19th.
I got 21 proposals. Out of a 24 student class.
So I graded what I had.
And I come in this morning - what do I find, but one of the missing proposals stuck in my mailbox. I last checked this mailbox at about 3:30 on Friday, so I know this is a way-late paper.
My main irritation with late papers is this (and maybe this is just me and I need to get over it) - but what I "hear" when I get a late paper is "Your time is unimportant enough that you can make the time to grade MY paper even though you did the rest of the class' several days ago." or "You have so much free time that grading this late paper should not be a burden."
It is, in my mind, not unlike the administrator who calls a meeting for 3:30, and then shows up at 4 pm, because they can make people wait - because they think their time is more important than others'.
We all are allotted 24 hours a day. Stealing someone's time is worse than stealing possessions, because time is truly the most limited and precious thing we have.
And yes, maybe it will only take me 15 minutes to grade this chap's paper. But that was 15 minutes I was not banking on spending today, or tomorrow, or the next day. And I made it abundantly clear that I didn't want late papers. (If I were a more assertive person, I'd probably copy the page of the syllabus that says "NO LATE PAPERS," staple it to his paper, and hand it back ungraded.)
Oh, and dude handed in a late lab assignment at the same time.
What I SHOULD do is refuse to grade them. What I probably WILL do, because I don't have the guts right now to deal with someone who's all upset because I adhered to a rule I made and he knew about, is wait until I have time to grade them, then knock some credit off for lateness.
(The fact that this guy and I have a "history" doesn't help - this is the fourth time he's signed up for this class. The first three he attended the first couple weeks then just disappeared, earning himself an F. [my campus has a policy of expunging failing grades if you retake the class]. He also signed up for a directed readings class I teach - in the summer, without asking my permission first, and it's a Permission of Instructor class. Then he never came to meet with me to choose his book, and when I tracked him down to ask him about it, he got rather huffy and said, "But I didn't KNOW who was teaching it!" Gah. That's the POINT of a Permission of Instructor - you find out who it is FIRST, then talk to them, THEN get permission.)
The kicker? This guy wants to go to seminary and be a minister. Not with this attitude, buddy.
Argh. People frustrate me sometimes.
On second thought - in one of my other classes I flat-out refused a late paper. Maybe I SHOULD refuse these.
3 comments:
People who are habitually late drive me crazy. I've never been in a position where I had to deal with late papers or late work of any kind but I mean people who, in general are just always late - for example you agree to meet someone for lunch at 12:00 and they finally show up at 12:15.
It seems like some people just didn't have the importance of punctuality instilled in them at an early age and they always think the punctual person is wrong to expect them to be on time. I don't know how to deal with people like that. They honestly think there's nothing wrong with being late and don't see why anyone else would have a problem with it. To me, being late, except for when there's a good reason for it like having a flat tire or something, is just plain rude.
I'm going to make an assumption here and that is that the guy did not attach anything giving a reason for his lateness. If that is true, I'd give him an F because the paper was late and you had been upfront about not accepting late papers. If you go ahead and accept it, you teach him (unwittingly for sure) that your word is not to be trusted and that he doesn't have to be responsible. If he had attached a reasonable explanation, I might cut him some slack and just reduce the grade for lateness.
Re Lynn's comment, I have a friend who is habitually late. She lives in Dallas and for a while commuted to a job here. We'd meet for coffee late in the evening after she finished her business meeting. No matter what time we set, she was at least 30 minutes late. I started taking my knitting with me and would knit while I waited. After waiting some amount of time, I'd go ahead and order my coffee. I determined that I would leave when I finished my drink if she hadn't shown up by then. She always came before the coffee was finished but I let her know I was annoyed. Didn't change her though.
Be mean and hand it back with the copy. Otherwise he will keep riding all over you. And then do it to everyone else too. This things do get around and the less you do about it the more late papers you will get. (I know: I was a student.)
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