Dear Annoyed Teacher,
Excuses. They will drive a teacher mad under normal circumstances. Sprinkle them in with a heaping spoonful of a pandemic and it's a recipe for combustion.
When I was in seventh grade, our science teacher, Mrs. Johnson, circulated the room to touch base with each of us for a final check-in on our culminating science projects. Most of my classmates were adding finishing touches to their paper mache` monstrosties of garbage, but Felicia's desk was empty. Mrs. Johnson inquired, "Felicia, where is your project?"
I will never forget her response. "Well, I was gon' do my project on the rollie-pollie' s environment, but they ain't no rollie-pollies out today, and tomorrow it's 'sposed to rain."
Ol' Felicia, how I miss her. She had mastered the art of the excuse. Not only did she have an excuse ready for that day, she had one primed for the next day too. Nevermind that we had eight weeks to work on the project, and I am fairly certain "rollie-pollie" was not the scientific name for her bug of choice.
I don't remember Mrs. Johnson's response, but I know what my cooperating teacher would have said. When I did my internship back in 2002, she had students recite this line aloud. "Excuses build bridges that lead to nowhere. Those who use them are incompetent and masters of nothing." If a smooth talker in braces came strutting in with a pitiful excuse about not doing his homework because he had a baseball game the previous night, she would cue the class. "Hey everybody, Chris couldn't do his reader response questions last night because he had a baseball game. Say it with me now."
In a perfectly rhythmed cadence, the class would recite the motto like a well-rehearsed choir.
Chris would sit down. There was no discussion.
I loved that woman.
The virtual launch of pandemic school has ushered in a wave of excuses that has every teacher's head spinning and ready to spew pea soup. The excuses are now disguised in the form of technology mishaps. Some of the issues are legitimate, but for teachers who can't crawl through cyberspace, it's tough to know when you have a Chris or Felicia on your hands.
The excuses today are not about the rollie pollie's precarious nature or late night baseball games. Instead, they sound like this.
"My internet was down last night."
"Yes, I disabled the pop up blockers."
"I couldn't get into classlink."
"The FLVS site kept giving me an error code."
There's a lot of trust happening behind those computer screens. What's a teacher to do? I don't know the answer to my own question, but I can tell you for the most part, it sounds a lot like the rollie pollie's environment.
We are not Microsoft tech support. We are educators who just want to teach, and the most important lesson we can teach students is how to be responsible for their actions. If we don't, we are helping them build bridges that lead to nowhere, and if they keep using them, they will end up incompetent and masters of nothing.
The same could be said of us as the adults, couldn't it?
What excuses need to go?
-CDB