Dead Relatives

[intertext]

The number of "deaths in the family" among my students increases exponentially with the number of assignments due. I had two dead grandparents today. Guess what? There was a paper due. Students come to me and say "I haven't been in class the last couple of weeks because I've had a death in the family" and I say" ... oh yeah?" not in exactly those cynical tones, but almost. I mean. really. If you REALLY had someone desperately dear to you die wouldn't you have let someone know BEFORE the day there was a paper due? And how many dead relatives really require an absence of two weeks?? I know that sometimes there really ARE grannies or aunties or cousins whose deaths are really meaningful. It amazes me that students invent dead relatives as an excuse for a late paper with such thoughtlessness. I mean, doesn't it occur to them that they might be tempting fate?

And a variation on these for me is dead dogs... One student came to me and said that her dog had died so she was having trouble getting work done. Well. This had me nearly in tears. Then, over the next few weeks I had a couple more. Obviously word had gotten around that this one was a sucker for dead dog stories... Honestly, it makes you want to spit, or hit something.

Comments

[lidocafe.livejournal.com]

I know! The problem is that we feel like absolute jerks if we say, "well, I'm going to need some documentation." I have avoided this so far because I don't want to live in that kind of world.

A year and a half ago, a student told me she was having trouble in school because her father had died a month earlier and her mother relied on her because she was an only child ("It's just me and my mom now"). Of course, my heart just broke for her, and I made all kinds of allowances until she finally faded away. Last term, she showed up in a different class, and within a month, she came to me and said that her father had died! When I said, "I thought your father died last year," she said "I meant my sister." I said, "I thought you were an only child," and we sat there silently for a minute before she shamefacedly shuffled out of the office.

Not long after, she was back in the office telling me she needed a B- in the course. Why? She wanted to be a teacher, and English was the one thing standing in her way. I couldn't help but think, would I want THIS person telling my kid what's right and wrong?

[intertext.livejournal.com]

I had one student tell me she had _three_ grandparents die in one term. I realize that this is not impossible, but it is statistically unlikely.