responsibility rant

Okay. This is going to be angry. Skip if you want to.

I am getting fed up with personal responsibility, the lack of same on some people's part, and the idea that the responsible people should pick up the slack for the irresponsible ones.

I have students right and left begging to take exams late because they had some kind of life-issue come up - but they couldn't be bothered to call me in advance. Nooooo. They either assumed that because I didn't see them there, I would know they had a good reason for missing the exam, or they figured that I'd take pity on them.

My rule is: you let me know before the exam. DO NOT come to me after I've handed it back - after I've GONE OVER it in class - and ask me to take a make up. I will not write a make up for you under those conditions.

And they should know that. It is in my syllabus. It is something I remind them of on a regular basis.

I am not an inflexible hardass. If a student tells me they have another big exam on the same day, I am willing to let them take the exam early or late. If someone calls me the morning of the exam because they are sick, I will hold handing it back until they've taken it, or I will write a make-up.

But I need TIME and PRIOR WARNING to be able to write a make-up. It takes an hour, minimum, even if I do it as an all-essay make-up. And I do not have time this week to be writing make-up exams!

The good news is I drop the lowest exam in that class so at least it can count as the students' drop exams.

In my non-majors class...well, it's just frustrating. I have people who seem to have some kind of Major Life Drama every single feckin' week. Everything from their grandma fell and their mom's not strong enough to lift her to their car breaking down to they need an operation. And you know, I'm sympathetic - but when it's the same person every week, I almost reach the point of wanting to say, "Drop out until your life calms down and then come back." Because even with my make-up exams, and my allowing homework to be handed in late, and my giving out copies of my notes - the people who are not there still do miserably. The best they can get is a D, from what I've seen.

College is like a full-time job. Unfortunately, more and more people seem to see it as being like a hobby - or like a tv show that you watch when you can catch it. No. It takes work and dedication to succeed and you are wasting your time and you are wasting the professor's good will if you go in thinking you can devote ten hours or less per week to attending all your classes and doing all your assignments and succeed.

It drives me ROUND THE BEND, the number of students who come up to me and say at the start of class, "I have a meeting to go to" or "I have a doctor's appointment" or "we have an away game this weekend" and ask to leave class early (this is an 11-12:15 Thursday class; I do not know of ANY away games - save perhaps one in Hawaii - that would require that amount of travel time). As for the doctor's appointments - maybe it's part of HMO world, I don't know, but when I need to go to the doctor or dentist, I am careful to arrange it at a time when I am NOT IN CLASS. And as for meetings: well, I tell the meeting leader that I will be late. Because, you know? I am IN CLASS.

Another part of the responsibility rant: I was at a meeting at church last night. Part of the reason for the meeting was the concern that attendance has been low, how do we bring it up? And how do we get these people who join and never attend to start attending regularly? And I felt at least a few eyes on me, because some of the joined-but-not-attending folks are parents of kids in my youth group. And people are always asking, "Why aren't Matt and Debbie here?" or "Where's Mrs. Lowton?" and I have to scrabble around and talk about sick kids or bad job schedules or the like, while I'm really thinking: I am not their mom! I do not call them Sunday morning and tell them to come to church! They are grownups! They should be able to manage this!

And one of the suggestions brought up - all of us "regulars" get a list of ten names. We check on Sunday morning to see if they're there, and then call them to tell them we missed them if they aren't.

NO NO NO NO NO NO. I do not want to do that. Part of it is I hate the phone anyway - it takes a tremendous amount of psychic energy on my part to pick up the receiver and intrude (because that's how I see it: intruding) on someone else's day. Especially to nanny at them: "why weren't you in church Sunday?" And I know I will get the brush off from some people, and the brush off always hurts. And what do I do - how do I report back to my 'commandante' if someone says "Don't call me again! Never call me! I will come to church when it pleases me to!" (because that would be my response if I were not a regular attender and someone kept calling me and bugging me).

Because, you know? Nine times out of ten, when my phone rings at home, I sigh and roll my eyes, and have to put down the embroidery or book or whatever I'm doing and go answer it. And nine times out of ten, it is someone "needing" me for something. And I personally regard many phone calls as intrusions (my friends and I - we either e-mail or we meet in person at set times) and I tend to think other people feel the same way.

And I don't like being thrust into the role of attendance-taker. I don't like being forced to call people and - the subtext of the call being, explain yourself, why weren't you in church. And I don't want to listen to the same damn tired excuses that my students give me: there was an away game. I was tired. My manager at work called me and is making me come in. My kid was sick. I didn't feel like it.

And the other thing is - I think there's a fundamental split in our society right now, that there are simply people who don't see being in church on Sunday as as IMPORTANT. They are there when THEY "need" to be there or when it's convenient to them. They don't recognize that their being there is important to others - or if they do, they don't care. And you know? We're not going to "convert" people like that by calling them on the phone. That habit is learned early and hard to break.

It's just like the students who don't work up to their potential in class - because it's just not important to them. It's the old idea of motiviation - if you are inwardly motivated, you will walk through Hell to do something you consider to be important to do. But if you're only motivated by those outside of you pushing you, when times get difficult, you're more likely to fold.

And that's why I'm so opposed to the calling idea - it just allows people to continue to be outer-motivated without trying to develop any inner-motivation in them. And the other suggestion: putting them on committees and giving them responsibilities - not such a good idea. Some responsibilities are good, and for people who seem motivated, they should have them. But for the "questionable" ones? Not so much. I know. I've been in the place of being called, frantically, by someone at the church asking if I could "fill in" for Ms. X becuase Ms. X didn't show up to do whatever she had agreed to do. And that's worse than knowing I have to do something and being able to fit it into my schedule. (And that's something I totally DO NOT GET: why do you agree to do something, knowing that you probably won't do it? It's just unfair to everyone, most to the person who gets called to fill in for you).

One thing I am going to ask about the calling tree: that they keep statistics for a few months and see if it increases attendance. Because I'm danged if I'm going to keep calling people and bugging them to come if we've been doing it for a year and it has not increased attendance one bit.

And if it's a matter of money? If they're concerned about the operating budget? Hell, I'd rather increase my weekly giving and just cut back on some other area of my life. Because I'd frankly rather the discussion be HONESTLY about "we are afraid we won't have enough money" than "we need to get butts in seats so we can get silver in the collection plate." (And I suspect - just from knowing their life-situations - that a lot of the non-regulars will be a "disappointment" in the offering-department. And the whole idea of it coming down to money makes me sad and mad and frustrated, but that's the subtext I get)

And you know? It seems it's the way of the world these days. The responsible folk get loaded up with extra crap - like calling people who don't come to church - because they're responsible. Because, even if they disagree with it, they will do it if they're told to do it or if they're asked to do it and can't come up with a good reason why not.

On my campus we also get handed letters and notes and phone messages to pass on to our students because the offices doing the sending-out are too lazy to keep up with the students' addresses or they think the students cannot be trusted to be told, "check in with us every month." And so some classes I have three or four different messages to pass to different people, some of whom may not be there, and it's just frustrating. It feels like a job I should not have to do.

I put in a fifteen hour day yesterday. I worked five of those hours solidly - with, I think, one break to get a drink of water - working on a labor-intensive, mentally-draining computer-related task. And so, when I'm sitting in my nighttime meeting - after I've already been up for 14 hours - hearing people talk about "how can we get people in church - hey - let's give our regular people Extra Work to do and see if that helps!" I'm just not very enthusiastic about it.

Because, you know? I think if ANYONE had a reasonable excuse for not attending that meeting, it would have been me. (I had people asking me, at that meeting, if I was sick or had a migraine or if something was wrong. Because I wasn't talking and I spent most of the time holding my head. I explained that I was just tired but I don't think the other people - many of whom are retired - really understand what goes on during my day - I'm one of those "lazy academics" who "puts in two hours in the classroom and then goes home.")

I really think responsibility - and doing what you're "supposed to" - is not something a calling tree can fix. It's not something making faculty pass messages to students can fix. It's not something even that getting Ds in a class because you never show up can fix. It's something either inborn or learnt at an early age, and it's hard to break the habit of "what's on tv tonight is more important to me" or "I'll go when I feel like I need it."

And so - please don't kill the Golden Gooses in your life - the responsible people - by asking them to be "mothers" to the people who seem more feckless. It only makes the responsible people resentful and I'm guessing it will have minimal beneficial effects.