Seven out of Thirteen

Not surprisingly, the past few days have left my classes well behind in delivering their demonstration speeches. In one class I was in touch, via e-mail, with all the students who were not in class right before the break and told them they were speaking the first class session back from break.

The two people who had signed up for that day were there and they delivered the speech. Of the remaining students who were supposed to speak that day (by my declaration), only one of them was ready. She responded to my e-mail after break was over, but still a couple of days before she was supposed to speak and she came in well prepared and did a nice job.

Only one other student responded to my e-mail. She indicated that she would be set to talk, however, she was not in class. That means she has missed two classes in a row (a three hour class that meets once a week), in back to back sessions, once before break and once after. I’ll bet that the week in between, when we were on break, she was fine to do whatever she wanted.

In my other class where we started speeches, there were two students absent the week we assigned dates but I e-mailed both of them. Again, it took about a week to hear from either one of them. I indicated that I could get one of the two of them on the first day and the other on the second day and it would be on a first come, first serve basis. The first student who got back to me indicated he wanted the second week and the second student said he was fine speaking the first week. That student was there and ready to go. So were some of the others but two people who were supposed to speak that first session back from break (both of whom had signed up for it before break) were not in class and have not been in touch with me yet.

So, overall, of 13 speeches that were supposed to be given over the two days (for two different classes), only 7 of them went. I just do not understand why students do not take things so seriously.