So I thought one of the most different and coolest things about starting college and leaving high school behind was also leaving behind class attendance policies. I was going to pick and choose when I went to class and which classes I felt like going to that day.
Ya, that didn’t work out so well.
Here I am at SMU, still being graded on class attendance and signing in to say I was there. I thought I grew out of this?!
Apparently not. In the past few years, SMU has been working hard to enforce class participation and attendance by making class attendance count for a percentage of the semester grade and subtracting from the grade if a person misses a given amount of classes.
Now, I understand the motivation behind SMU to implement this reinforcement of the rules. By making class mandatory, it forces students to keep up with the workload the teacher has planned for the class. This, in turn, will theoretically yield higher grades and test scores, therefore, improving the academic standings of the university as a whole. Trust me, I get that this is for our own benefit and is being used as a way to keep us more on track with our lives in order. But at what point are we supposed to take responsibility for our own actions and decisions?
By allowing us as students to make our own decisions about whether or not class is important that day, we make our own mistakes and learn solely from ourselves. I think it is good and healthy to leave the decision up to the individual. If they continue to repeatedly miss class they will have no one to blame but themselves and will have learned from their own experience.
Because I’m a big believer of learning from the mistakes I make, I don’t think that SMU’s attendance policy is necessary. However, I’m sure there are those who would gladly disagree with me, and I’d love to hear another point of view on the matter.
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My history teacher recently addressed why he has an attendance policy. The attendance policy is strictly enforced partly because students asked for it to be. After a student died on campus a few years ago the student senate was asked for ways to help cut down on partying. The student senate came up with the idea of the attendance policy to help slim down the number of students that drink during the week. So, the attendance policy is more to blame on the students here rather than your professors.
ReplyDeleteI also think the attendance policy needs to be adjusted. As college students, we should know that in order to make good grades we must attend class. And if we dont, we won't make the grades we want. This should be our own responsibility, not the responsibility of the professor to make us go to class. There are some classes where I learn much better from studying the textbook at home, but have to attend just to listen to a boring lecture that doesn't help me understand anything. I think this can be a waste of tiem. A student should know when and when they don't need to attend class and should be able to make the decision for themselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the OP and Hannah. I've sat through many lectures thinking, "Did I come to class today to have the professor read for me?". Attendance should be taken, but I don't think it is a fair policy to significantly reduce the grade of the student or even fail them solely based on their attendance records. The decision to attend should be up to us, even though I realize that responsibility might be too much for some and often leads to the abuse of that privilege.
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