oh, those poor high school kids

Bored high school kids? "...while 80 percent of students said doing homework was important, less than half reported doing an hour or less of it each week."

And the problem is [insert any semi-reasonable answer here].

Finger pointing at teachers? Parents? Or, god forbid, the students themselves?

Today, 8 students did not come to Eng 120 (Technical Writing) today. And I don't lecture. In fact, a major project rough draft was due today.

Here are 4 communicated excuses/reasons that came to me either by phone or email (some more valid than others):
1. cancer-stricken mom in ICU
2. needed to stay at home and wait for a tow truck to take my car to the shop
3. my roommate (and ride to campus) needed to stay at home and wait for a tow truck to take his car to the shop, and our other roommate couldn't bring us to campus on time
4. court (and missed the class before because girlfriend had to be taken to the clinic)

Listen Up High School Teachers:
Keep up your high expectations for attendance, work completion, and quality of work. Do not give in to the temptation to lower standards. Do not dumb down your curriculum. And do not sacrifice quality course content just to make class time all fun and games. (You know those in your building who show movies and do other non-sensical activities way too often.)

Your students become the college's incoming class (if they make it to the next step), and here at the college, the faculty don't hold students' hands and gently guide them on their educational journeys (they're adults!!), we don't report their absences to their parents, and we don't lower standards to accommodate each individual's "personal life struggle" to manage his/her time and dedicate brain attention to homework. Yes, there are counselors, advisors, tutoring centers, learning labs, writing centers, etc. to assist them. But Faculty actually get to spend their time teaching (vs. "class managing"/disciplining), grading/assessing, guiding, encouraging, but also expecting students to put in their full share of effort.