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From the issue dated August 11,
2000
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POINT OF VIEW
The Dog Ate My Disk, and Other Tales of WoeBy
CAROLYN FOSTER SEGAL
Taped to
the door of my office is a cartoon that features a cat explaining to
his feline teacher, "The dog ate my homework." It is intended as a
gently humorous reminder to my students that I will not accept
excuses for late work, and it, like the lengthy warning on my
syllabus, has had absolutely no effect. With a show of energy and
creativity that would be admirable if applied to the (missing)
assignments in question, my students persist, week after week,
semester after semester, year after year, in offering excuses about
why their work is not ready. Those reasons fall into several broad
categories: the family, the best friend, the evils of dorm life, the
evils of technology, and the totally bizarre.
The
Family. The death of the grandfather/grandmother is, of course,
the grandmother of all excuses. What heartless teacher would dare to
question a student's grief or veracity? What heartless student would
lie, wishing death on a revered family member, just to avoid a
deadline? Creative students may win extra extensions (and days off)
with a little careful planning and fuller plot development, as in
the sequence of "My grandfather/grandmother is sick"; "Now my
grandfather/grandmother is in the hospital"; and finally, "We could
all see it coming -- my grandfather/grandmother is
dead."
Another favorite excuse is "the family emergency,"
which (always) goes like this: "There was an emergency at home, and
I had to help my family." It's a lovely sentiment, one that conjures
up images of Louisa May Alcott's little women rushing off with
baskets of food and copies of Pilgrim's Progress, but I do
not understand why anyone would turn to my most irresponsible
students in times of trouble.
The Best Friend. This
heartwarming concern for others extends beyond the family to
friends, as in, "My best friend was up all night and I had to (a)
stay up with her in the dorm, (b) drive her to the hospital, or (c)
drive to her college because (1) her boyfriend broke up with her,
(2) she was throwing up blood [no one catches a cold anymore;
everyone throws up blood], or (3) her grandfather/grandmother
died."
At one private university where I worked as an
adjunct, I heard an interesting spin that incorporated the motifs of
both best friend and dead relative: "My best friend's mother killed
herself." One has to admire the cleverness here: A mysterious woman
in the prime of her life has allegedly committed suicide, and no
professor can prove otherwise! And I admit I was moved, until
finally I had to point out to my students that it was amazing how
the simple act of my assigning a topic for a paper seemed to drive
large numbers of otherwise happy and healthy middle-aged women to
their deaths. I was careful to make that point during an off week,
during which no deaths were reported.
The Evils of Dorm
Life. These stories are usually fairly predictable; almost
always feature the evil roommate or hallmate, with my student in the
role of the innocent victim; and can be summed up as follows: My
roommate, who is a horrible person, likes to party, and I, who am a
good person, cannot concentrate on my work when he or she is
partying. Variations include stories about the two people next door
who were running around and crying loudly last night because (a) one
of them had boyfriend/girlfriend problems; (b) one of them was
throwing up blood; or (c) someone, somewhere, died. A friend of mine
in graduate school had a student who claimed that his roommate
attacked him with a hammer. That, in fact, was a true story; it came
out in court when the bad roommate was tried for killing his
grandfather.
The Evils of Technology. The computer age
has revolutionized the student story, inspiring almost as many new
excuses as it has Internet businesses. Here are just a few
electronically enhanced explanations:
* The computer wouldn't
let me save my work.
* The printer wouldn't print.
*
The printer wouldn't print this disk.
* The printer wouldn't
give me time to proofread.
* The printer made a black line
run through all my words, and I know you can't read this, but do you
still want it, or wait, here, take my disk. File name? I don't know
what you mean.
* I swear I attached it.
* It's my
roommate's computer, and she usually helps me, but she had to go to
the hospital because she was throwing up blood.
* I did write
to the newsgroup, but all my messages came back to me.
* I
just found out that all my other newsgroup messages came up under a
diferent name. I just want you to know that its really me who wrote
all those messages, you can tel which ones our mine because I didnt
use the spelcheck! But it was yours truely :) Anyway, just in case
you missed those messages or dont belief its my writting, I'll
repeat what I sad: I thought the last movie we watched in clas was
borring.
The Totally Bizarre. I call the first story
"The Pennsylvania Chain Saw Episode." A commuter student called to
explain why she had missed my morning class. She had gotten up early
so that she would be wide awake for class. Having a bit of extra
time, she walked outside to see her neighbor, who was cutting some
wood. She called out to him, and he waved back to her with the saw.
Wouldn't you know it, the safety catch wasn't on or was broken, and
the blade flew right out of the saw and across his lawn and over her
fence and across her yard and severed a tendon in her right hand. So
she was calling me from the hospital, where she was waiting for
surgery. Luckily, she reassured me, she had remembered to bring her
paper and a stamped envelope (in a plastic bag, to avoid
bloodstains) along with her in the ambulance, and a nurse was
mailing everything to me even as we spoke.
That wasn't her
first absence. In fact, this student had missed most of the class
meetings, and I had already recommended that she withdraw from the
course. Now I suggested again that it might be best if she dropped
the class. I didn't harp on the absences (what if even some of this
story were true?). I did mention that she would need time to
recuperate and that making up so much missed work might be
difficult. "Oh, no," she said, "I can't drop this course. I had been
planning to go on to medical school and become a surgeon, but since
I won't be able to operate because of my accident, I'll have to
major in English, and this course is more important than ever to
me." She did come to the next class, wearing -- as evidence of her
recent trauma -- a bedraggled Ace bandage on her left
hand.
You may be thinking that nothing could top that excuse,
but in fact I have one more story, provided by the same student, who
sent me a letter to explain why her final assignment would be late.
While recuperating from her surgery, she had begun corresponding on
the Internet with a man who lived in Germany. After a one-week,
whirlwind Web romance, they had agreed to meet in Rome, to
rendezvous (her phrase) at the papal Easter Mass. Regrettably, the
time of her flight made it impossible for her to attend class, but
she trusted that I -- just this once -- would accept late work if
the pope wrote a note.
Carolyn Foster Segal is an
assistant professor of English at Cedar Crest College.
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