Hi everyone:

When my kids were little, I used to tell them “we can do this nice or nasty, but we are going to do it” whenever I wanted them to do something they didn’t care to do. I’m the mom, they’re the kids, and they didn’t have a choice.

Well, the same thing can be said of college students. This past term I had a boatload of students and in that mix, at two different colleges, I had one student who shall be known herein and forevermore as “the student from the fiery place” and another student who was very diligent with his work.

One student demanded constant extensions… the other got his work done.

The end of the semester came for both colleges. The SFTFP was miserable till the bitter end. The other student sent me an email towards the end of the class, apologizing for missing a couple of deadlines in the last couple of weeks of the class. He explained that he wasn’t asking for any special consideration or extensions, but told me that he wanted to explain why his work had not been as prompt as previously had been the case. He apologized for appearing to be lackadaisical but told me that his work had been especially demanding and he missed some rough draft deadlines. He assured me that he would meet the final deadline and was completing his tasks with all of his might.

Guess which student I offered grace to?  Yep. It wasn’t SFTFP, for sure. This is something to keep in mind when you are dealing with professors. The second student had met every deadline and was an excellent student at the top of his class. He never asked for any special treatment and was always very pleasant with both me and with the other students in the course. Food for thought.

Best,

Dr. Sheri