Teacher at Work

I just got done preparing a new message that I'll be posting for all of my classes on each of their class websites using the university's e-classroom:

Please read all of the following message carefully:

Over the past two weeks or so, many students have both approached me in class and written to me by email asking for absences, latenesses, and early departures from class to be excused. I have been extremely lenient in granting excuses over the past couple of weeks, but the increasing volume of these requests has begun to cause me some concern.

I am not sure what policy other teachers and professors at T------- advance when it comes to lateness, absence, and early departure from class, but I have already mentioned my policy in class several times. My policy is also described in writing in our class syllabus, which is available for review and download under the “Course Documents” section of this website.

There are only two reasons why you should be either late, absent, or leaving class early: 1) you are experiencing a family emergency, or 2) you (and not anyone else) are experiencing a medical emergency. In the future, I will only excuse an absence, lateness, or early departure if it is because of either a family or a medical emergency.

I understand that many of you are involved in volunteer events and organizations that place a great demand on your time. I come from a family and from an educational background that insisted on giving back to the larger community and society around me to whom I owe so much, so I can appreciate and I applaud your involvement with volunteer activities. Your classes at T-------, however—including English classes taught by foreign teachers—take priority over everything else, except for family or personal medical emergencies. A volunteer opportunity, a social gathering, a lecture, another class running overtime, etc. are not acceptable excuses for missing a class or any part of a class. If you are enrolled in a class either before or after my class that is taught by a teacher or professor that is asking or demanding that you miss some or all of my class, this teacher or professor is wrong—you have enrolled in my class, and you should be in my class from the first minute to the last unless you have a legitimate excuse. Because my courses do not typically involve much homework, it is even more important that you make an effort to be present for every possible minute of every class, so that I can have enough information to give you a proper grade at the conclusion of the semester. When you are not in class, you are depriving yourselves and your classmates of knowledge and input that could help or change for the better yourselves and/or your classmates, and this deprivation is unacceptable—unless an emergency arises.

Therefore, in the future, before you ask me to excuse an absence, a lateness, or an early departure, please ask yourselves these three questions: 1) “Is it a personal medical emergency that is causing me to ask Mr. Meenan to be excused?” 2) “Is it a family emergency that is causing me to ask Mr. Meenan to be excused? 3) VERY IMPORTANT: “Would I feel comfortable asking any one of my Chinese-speaking laoshi to be excused in this instance?” If the answer is “no” to at least two out of three of these questions, then do not ask me to be excused. If the answer is “yes” to 1) both questions 1 and 3, or 2) questions 2 and 3, then go ahead and ask me to be excused and we will talk about your situation.

Regardless, if we agree that your absence, lateness, or early departure is excusable, I will also need a note from a medical or administrative authority at the beginning of the following class for you to be finally excused. I will have the note read and verified by a dean in the Department of Foreign Languages, so even if you can only obtain a note that is written in Chinese, that is acceptable. Again, any notes that you wish to give me to complete the process of excusing an absence must be delivered at the beginning of your next class with me.

As I said during out first week of class, there is only one behavioral rule that I ask you to keep in mind when dealing with me and your classmates: “Treat others with a degree of respect that you desire for yourselves.” I have a tremendous amount of respect for you as my students and as students at a university as prestigious as T-------; all I am asking of you is that you grant me a similar degree of respect.

Thank you to all of the people who have asked me to be excused for a valid reason, and for providing me with a note at the beginning of our next class together.

Thank you all for reading this long note. I’m looking forward to seeing you all again in class next week.

Mr. M-----

After reading it over again just now, it seems like I might be better fit for writing legal briefs instead of ppts on oratory technique. Some very ridiculous reasons for missing class have been thrown my way in recent weeks--"I'm volunteering at a pre-season NBA basketball game downtown" (pretty cool, I have to admit) and "I was at a friend's birthday party" first come to mind. As the reasons and requests have piled up, I've slowly begun to lose my taste for being as lenient as I usually am with such things. As student after student either sent me one self-deprecating and conciliatory email after another, or came striding up to me in class with a brimming smile on their face (the default Chinese expression of nervousness, used to try to defuse antagonism or discomfort when an uncomfortable subject is broached in conversation), I began to get the vaguest of impressions that they were taking advantage of me. It's not typically my style to work so passively to try to get a message across, but that's the way that things seem to work over here sometimes--or, in fact, all the time, in my experience thus far. We'll see how they all respond.