Yesterday I had to email three of my students to inform them that they were in danger of failing my course today. This should have come to no surprise to any of them. In all cases they rarely come to class and have turned in half (or fewer) of their assignments. I�ve been meaning to do send these messages since last week, but I�ve been agonizing over it and I kept hoping one of them would turn in one of their overdue assignments in hopes that I wouldn�t have to. But no matter how much I didn�t want to write these emails, they didn�t want to receive them even more. They all freaked out and the end result is that the students I�d felt I hadn�t been able to rope into the course are all coming to meet with me next week.

The thing is, at least two of the students had things going on that made their problems seem reasonable if not actually excusable. If I had known what was going on, there are things I could have done to help. I totally understand not wanting to admit you can�t do it all � I am totally like that myself. But if you are a student, take it from me that if you have a legitimate problem like, say, surgery or a car accident or even med school application deadlines, if your teachers know what�s going on in the rest of your life, they might be more willing to be flexible. I�m not saying we all will or that we always will � we don�t like being taken advantage of either. And after all, it is our job to make sure that we give you every opportunity to learn what we�re trying to teach and we can�t do that if you don�t meet us halfway. But we also are all people. We know stuff happens. When we see you missing from class, we assume you didn�t feel like coming and that you don�t care about the course if we don�t know differently. It�s not good to be a whiner, but please talk to us. It helps you and us. We don�t want to fail you any more than you want to fail. Okay, so maybe I wanted to fail the girl who got a B on the quiz and never came to class just a little bit. But it�s nothing personal. I just want to feel like I�m not wasting my time. And here�s the other thing: if you don�t show up, we do notice. You may not think we know who you are, but you are mistaken.

But I�m not a total pushover. I made them wait at least 8 hours before replying to their panicky e-mails. They should be at least a little scared.

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