Why I Accept All Late Work Without Penalties
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- To reiterate, my response is not to say that teachers must have my policy or that my policy is better. This is a reponse to the idea that having zero penalties for late work is inherently bad and harms students. (Original video from Justin Baeder, PhD)
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it's the age old question: why do something that makes perfect sense and is good for everybody when you can be an asshole instead?
This actually summarises a lot of conflicts and problems throughout history.
Literal answer: because then you'd have to admit to yourself that when others forced you to do the st*pid thing, it was unfair, and that hurts.
@@BL-sd2qw And as we saw with student loan forgiveness, a LOT of people don't like admittin the obvious to themselves and would rather hurt people. Hurting people seems to be an activity enjoyed by way to many people in this country, judging by Republican voters. Apparently a whole lot of people can't differentiate between strength and cruelty.
@@frankm.2850: "Apparently a whole lot of people can't differentiate between strength and cruelty." Nailed it! Either that, or as you say, some people actively enjoy being cruel.
@@BL-sd2qw yep, it's the age old "I suffered so it's not fair if you don't also suffer". Like what??
Carrots are better motivators than sticks.
I swear I thought you meant whole carrots were better motivators than carrot sticks. I have no explanation for my brain. Anyway, yes, I agree.
No, that`s not what he is talking about, the students don`t get carrots either. The students turn in their work because they actually want to study and do their courses. Your "carrots are better motivators" - philosophy is still based on the idea of students needing coercion to study. People actually want to learn and move forward in their life if it wasn`t educated out of them by a system that tried to manipulate them through punishment and reward.
Yup I was beaten by the stick relentlessly and didn't succeed like they said I would. Its a bad excuse for being cruel.
@@anthill1510 "People actually want to learn and move forward in their life" that's it. that IS the carrot, the reward IS the learning, you said it yourself
@@anthonywhipple18 That`s not what people mean when they quote that saying, they mean you get external awards like stars, treats and good marks. That saying refers to a kind of thinking that says you need external rewards to "get" people to learn or do something.
In contrast to that I was talking about the students being motivated by internal rewards and that`s why they are turning in their work. Very different view of people, how they should be treated and how they are motivated.
Compassion and empathy go a lot further.
Those two are sadly lost to many
They're also dying out judging by how many people seem to think hurting people will somehow magically fix the homelessness crisis, the immigration problems, and basically every other problem we're experiencing in this country.
If only compassion and empathy were a power flex maybe they’d be more of a drip. Unfortunately, people who make the rules demand conformity and refuse to understand why some people are different.
Why do some people take a personal offense to lateness? Like when you’re going through what you’re going through (ie, stress, health issues, family drama/trauma) and they make your lateness all about how you’re disrespecting THEIR time, when, in fact, you’re just in survival mode and they’re just adding another layer of stress to your life.
@MachelTheDestroyer Spoken like a no boundary having codependent. It's the same with all of empaths, and then they wonder why they keep getting abused by takers.
@@skb4055 Because it is disrespectful. Everyone
Has life going on. Everyone Else managed to carve time out of their day so they could be out of certain place at a certain time as agreed.
The idea that you think you are special because you don't know how to manage your life is a problem. The entitlement of it all. If you can't make it, then do not agree to the meeting.
When I was a first year Psych student my dad died and I had a psychotic break. I emailed my professor to let them know I would be late returning from winter break (he died the day before classes were going to start and we lived on the other side of the country) and that there was no way I would have an assignment handed in on time (2-3 days later)... she demanded that I produce a death certificate... for a man that was still waiting to get an autopsy or I'd get 0.
If someone had just said 'get it done when you can' I probably wouldn't have failed out that year and given up on my dreams. I'm doing a lot better now but the cruelty of being asked to prove he died when I was panicking and dealing with just how awful his death was really stuck with me. When I finally went back after the funeral everything felt pointless and the excitement that I'd had to be learning things kind of washed away and I just felt really out of place. Too working class and too sad to be there with all these happy middleclass people that didn't understand.
This got way too deep too fast. Sorry if it makes anyone feel uncomfortable. Anyway I'm glad that there are people like you out there for students that need it. Maybe they'll carry that empathy forward in their personal and professional lives going forward too.
I just wanted to say I'm so sorry that happened to you, it breaks my heart that you were treated so coldly by a teacher during such a tragic and traumatic time, and that or cost you so much... I'm glad you're doing better now ❤
It must have been really difficult to relive your trauma to recount what happened to you and I'm terribly sorry that you had to endure such horrible treatment.. Thank you for sharing your story... ❤️🩹❤️🩹
Hug
I'm so sorry this happened to you, university can be a tough place to be... human.
❤
I had a physics professor who not only didn't set hard deadlines for assignments, but would let students redo labs as many times as they wanted for a better grade. His thinking was that their final grade should reflect what they learned over the course of the semester, not whether or not they learned a concept "on time". Even as a student who wasn't suffering from trauma, this made it very motivating to learn the material as best I could, since I knew the work I put in would be reflected in my final grade.
YES!
Teaching is about trying and learning from failure until you succeed! By recording all failures as marks against your final grade we just incentivize unnecessary perfectionism (and perfect is the enemy of good!) and demonize real learning! The only time someone truly FAILS is when they GIVE UP! If a student cannot do their multiplication the first time around, why is there a punishment?! Teach him till he gets it right or gives up! THEN grade him!
This exact scenario happened to me in middle school and my teacher literally let us retake our tests, ANY tests, to score higher to show that we LEARNED! I got way better at math thanks to teachers like her! My Cal teacher in senior year did the same and I came out of the AP exam for Cal BC with a 4! And I went straight to cal 3 and linear alg. right after in college!
Studies have proven that we learn MORE after we failed the first time because you remember!
I had a high school anatomy and physiology teacher who did something similar. On exams, you handed in the paper and she graded it on the spot then handed it back to you. You could look at it, give it back, then go read the textbook. When you were ready, you could come take a fresh exam sheet and try any question again to add to your grade. The test was designed to take about 15 minutes and periods were 50 minutes so you had enough time to do it twice, or if you only had one more thing to check, three times. This motivated me so much and I learned a lot. The first test told me "ok, I don't remember enough about bone structure" so I'd go learn it immediately when I saw that I didn't know it. I did well in her class and remembered a lot more than I otherwise would have, because there was a reason to learn what I missed.
what a great concept. Wish more professors viewed education this way.
I'm pretty sure my physics teacher in high school should have failed me in terms of actual scores. I asked him why he didn't and he said "I don't fail people who learn."
This.... makes way more sense than I was expecting.
The student preferably gets it right the first time because they don't want to spend time redoing a lab, while the professor gets students who are proactive in their learning and likely will give good remarks.
Except for statutory deadlines that must be conformed with, I have never come across a deadline that wasn't flexible in my professional career. No-one gets paid any less if we miss a deadline and no-one gets paid any more if they are early. Things happen all the time in the real world and anyone who thinks their arbitrary deadlines will be adhered to rigidly will live a life of disappointment.
As a person who used to write a lot of grants there can be hard deadlines in the real world, bidding on projects is another. Even then there can often be exceptions that give flexibility.
I work in software development and things are late all the time. Communicating that something is behind schedule and will be late is a valuable skill. Everyone will deal with some fixed deadlines in real life, but it is far from the rule.
In the working world, there are deadlines that are rigid, but these tend to be few. Most deadlines are soft and can be extended, or are completely arbitrary in the first place.
Yes! The vast majority of my deadlines have some flexibility and if I miss one, nobody demands a medical certificate, they just accept my "sorry this is late!"
Yep. Like another reply said, you just gotta communicate. If you keep any stakeholders up to date about your timeline, people are usually very understanding. I think it's way worse if a deadline is missed and that's a surprise to everyone, because they may have been making plans around the assumption your work would be done. Early, clear communication can prevent things from getting snarled.
When I was in uni, I had 6-8 classes every semester, and instructors did not coordinate their deadlines, so there were definitely times when I had to choose which assignments to do and which to write off. I would have loved to complete them all, but that just wasn't feasible.
A policy like this would definitely have improved my education.
This is what I wanted to say. When I was in college, each of my professors assigned a heavy amount of coursework like their class was the only class I was taking. Times that by 4-6 classes and all deadlines being around or on the same day made it very stressful. So yeah, some assignments had to be of lesser quality or dropped entirely to prioritize other, more "important" assignments. It's dumb that professors don't realize this. Maybe if they assigned a more reasonable amount of coursework, then they wouldn't have this issue with late assignment policies.
@@teddyjlockwood that's a nightmare. I had a class that had 4 assignments, each of which was ~10 hours to complete, and they were collectively worth 8% of my final mark. The work/reward ratio was just too low and they were basically optional, so I took the hit on that one class to give myself more time on assignments that were worth more or mandatory.
This! I recently had to ask for an extension because I had two major assignments (worth 50% of their final grade each) due on the same day. The wild part is I had the same tutor for both courses so I don't understand how that happened unless she didn't have a say in the deadlines.
I went through the same system and held down work as well. It taught me how to manage time. When there was illness I negotiated extensions. This is adulting
@@Angelkitty604 yep, and once you add in the professors who think they can give 10+ hours of homework per week for a 1 credit hour class, you have zero free time. Including one professor who outright said to expect at least 10 hours of homework per week because 1 hour wasn't enough to teach the material. Like IDK, then don't make it a 1 credit class?? University policy was 3 hours of homework per credit hour. Which means if you're taking the bare minimum credits for full time, that's 12 hours of class and 36 hours of homework, so already more than a full time job. But most professors were giving 6-7 hours of homework. When you add up a 15-16 credit hour schedule that's 90-112 hours of homework per week. That's 13-16 hours of homework PER DAY on top of everything else. Once you add in class time, best case scenario that's leaving you 8 hours per day for everything else, sleep included.
"But when you don't normalize abuse at school, they won't accept abuse at the work place, and we can't have that."
As a salaried office worker, we miss deadlines ALL THE TIME because life gets in the way.
Someone goes on maternity leave or quits and their replacement has to be trained up, someone gets sick, someone breaks their ankle, a natural disaster causes an area to be without power, someone needs surgery and time to recover, someone's elderly parent in another country needs them to come home, your manager dies suddenly from an illness they were hiding, the company announces a restructure and job cuts that causes huge stress and hours of meetings, feedback and stress self care.
These are literal things that have happened in my team over the last 2 years. And it's only SOME of them! All those things impacted our productivity and pushed out deadlines. And that's not even factoring in when your work depends on someone else doing their part and they don't get it done in time!
The real world has fewer hard deadlines than school did in ny experience. And putting people first over arbitrary lines in the sand only builds stronger teams and helps me grow as a human!
Hear! Hear!
I mean in university if you have a health accidents you also get a extension. And you get more then enough time to complete the assignment where in a job you get as little time as possible to save on costs so it is not very comparable. I agree in certain situations there should be a deadline extension but that already exists.
I used to watch those shows where guys 😢who pimped cars would agree to a client's asked for delivery date without really negotiating for extra time and then they'd have their employees work insane hours plus weekends to get it done on time while they themselves often did only the design. I loathed those bosses. Anyone being even close to that toxic because they don't want to say no to a client is not someone you want to work with.
My attitude as an instructor is that if I don't let you submit late work, then I'm basically letting you off the hook by letting you not do the work. You take the zero, you walk away, go home, do nothing about it.
If you talk to me, work something out with me, then you go home and actually do the work, that actually means something. Giving a student a chance to do the work does more than giving that student an excuse to do nothing.
To give homework or assignments is for educator who can't do their job, and should be fired.
Exactly! If late work isn’t accepted it just doesn’t get done, because why bother doing it for no grade?
@@ArabellaPottery Not really. Assignments are a much better way to get students to learn the content and to know the content than exams, and I say this as a student.
@@zandromex8985 I think it depends on the grade level. If we're talking grade school, benefits of HW are often overestimated. But by college/university, you basically can't have an education without some type of homework.
@@zandromex8985 Not really. If you need to be working outside the classroom. They have failed to teach.
I technically have a late policy for my courses, BUT I make it very clear to my students that all they need to do is contact me and that I've never told someone 'no' for an extension. I also found it increases honesty and makes them more comfortable with approaching me about all sorts of things.
There are assignments I didn't turn in at all, that had been most the way done, but I didn't bother.
This is basically my policy as well, especially since we've gone to having most assignments turned in through our learning management system. Depending on the assignment, it's a huge headached to change the due date online for one individual student, so I sometimes require that they ask me in advance, but I don't ask for explanations or proof. Most of my students offer explanations anyway and it's a good chance for me to get to know them a little better and sometimes I've been able to point them towards support services available to them on campus. For several years now, I've had this policy and it has greatly reduced my anxiety and my students'.
Mhh it wouldn’t have worked for me as I would think I could do it till the last day 😢
100% I would be more honest with a professor with this policy. If I know you won't deny me the extension for my reason "not being good enough" then I'll tell you my actual reason in good faith. I'm also very grateful for professors who don't require a reason. I had a primarily mental issue one semester after already getting very physically ill and I was so grateful that I didn't have to explain that I had been absent becuase I was too depressed to get out of bed (literally not even to go to the fridge, I lost so much weight) immediately after clawing my way back to being well enough to go to class.
@@kinseylise8595 I hope you are doing better now!
I graduated college this month. The only reason I did is bc my teachers were like you.
I have mental health issues. I have miles and miles of trauma. I got depressed. I was stressed. I had a mental breakdown one week before graduation and almost quit the entire program bc I was just DONE.
My teacher talked me through it. Gave me all kinds of grace. Told me she was available to me 24/7. She did not want me to hurt myself or quit. She told me it wasn't worth it and she was gonna do whatever she could to make sure I was OK.
"Don't worry about the coursework. You can finish it later, even after graduation. Get some rest."
She even checked up on me. Texted me to make sure I was OK. Asked if I needed anything.
She was the best teacher I ever had. I would never have graduated if not for her. We need more teachers like her. Empathetic and kind. Worried about the student as a person, not their assignments.
Of course that would require teachers to see their students as people in the first place.
I am glad you got better that but i do not think deadlines should be removed because there are some people who may have a hard time and needs a break and mental support . I would support schools having mental support facilities for students going threw though times though as maybe it was just the area that i grew up in but literally everyone had miles of trauma due to just simply lives being tough and not growing up in a good area. Most people moved past it but it still definitely affected their performance. I also disagree that if teachers saw students as people then they would help. I feel like that is lacking the empathy that you yourself is asking for others. They could be going threw trauma of their down, maybe having family problems, financial problems, an abusive partner and more and is to depressed or mentally exhausted to help. Not being extra help does not make them bad people. But having people who are extra supportive makes them great people.
I just want to say that some teachers have a hard job and a lot of students. Just like you were tired and exhausted from your ordeals, I am sure many of the teachers are, too. For them, every late assignment is more BS and more work. Imagine, every week, you are tired, and all you want to do is wrap it up and go home, but you cannot because student x is late and you can give them a 0, or you can pile their troubles onto your own. Do not be selfish. Think of others. What did you do to make your teachers' jobs easier? Anything? Why do they have to work harder to make your life easier? I am glad they did, I am just asking you to realize they have issues too. It is not always a failure on their part if they do not or can not expend energy on you. It is a give and take. I hope that, whatever you do for a living, you will return the favor and wear yourself out to help people who did not complete their tasks.
@@itoibo4208 You feel better now?
@@LadyGoddessSephiroth i am just trying to help others cope. I started out as a perfectionist and quickly learned that i had to do something or i was never going to make it.
@@itoibo4208Arrogance
One of the big things for me is that many people don't realize when something traumatic is happening to them.
I'm 29 years old, and I JUST discovered a year and a half ago that I'd been routinely abused and gaslit by my parents throughout my life. I didn't know that what they were doing was abnormal - I genuinely believed that I was just a bad kid. So when I experienced constant, copious amounts of emotional burnout that kept me from turning things in on-time, I genuinely believed when my teachers said I was just "unmotivated."
Having teachers that were more flexible was a godsend, because even if I wanted to explain what was happening, I had no goddamn idea.
Good for you to see it so young! Im 50 and didn't fully realise the full extent of the abuse until I was 44. I've cut ties and life has been easier since. I still struggle, but it's nothing compared to what I went through.
Sending hugs ❤
THIS!!! this is so unbelievably freaking important to understand, and it seems like most people don't... I'm almost 50 and just beginning to process and have compassion for myself and everything I've suffered as a undiagnosed AuDHDer, all the unreasonable arbitrary "deadlines" I've missed, all the shame I've felt for being a 'failure'... not to mention, soooo many ppl don't have access to healthcare (mental and/or physical) or healthy support systems
*I'm also an abuse/trauma survivor, just been aware of and working thru that for a lot longer...
And it can be a vicious cycle... you get mistreated at home, which leads to poor school performance... your parents/guardians punish you for your poor school performance with even worse mistreatment.
"AuDHDer"? Not familiar with the acronym.
@@alabamacatherder5789 It means they are autistic and have ADHD.
my professors in college gave me a late extension on my work because i was their favorite bartender. i worked...they drank at my bar. i completed my assignments. just not quite on an early morning schedule. i thank them for understanding my situation.
I had two professors at college that basically said "School is your job right now, show up and you'll pass. Do the work and you'll get a better grade."
This only works for people who don’t need to work to pay bills, pay for school. It’s a fantasy for many of us.
What a ripoff. They don't care as long as the parents/state pay so you can postpone your adulthood!
This is something to keep in mind, the only people that will ever care about your grade is another school.
I have never had an employer even ask for a copy of my diplomas nevermind ask me what my grades were.
In most careers that require degrees passing is the only thing that matters.
Comparing it to a job is the last thing they should do; to foreshadow the hell you're postponing.
They're getting paid to BS around cleverly and help kids delay their adulthood.
I did this as an adjunct professor for case by case bases. We create anxiety and low self esteem for no reason
I wish I had more professors like this. I had a professor not allow me to make up a test because my grandfather, who lived across the country (USA), died, and I went to his memorial service. I even brought the obituary, and he said, "No excuses." Missing that test lowered my grade by a whole letter grade.
Wtf
i mean that is not what the professor was talking about. In most universities you are able to get a deadline extension for stuff like this. This was talking about no hard deadlines for everyone no matter the reason.
😊pp
Your goal is education. Deadlines don’t educate, they terrorize.
Time management is part of education
@@mo.ka.9661 they don't teach it real well
@@mo.ka.9661 he’s not your mother.
@@TheSuzberry Correct. So why does he let you get away with things like a mother would instead of holding to a stricter standard?
@@mo.ka.9661I was actually thinking about this while watching the video. Yes, education should teach you time management. But having strict deadlines does not teach you time management, it only tells you you need to figure out how to manage your time to meet them. If this hasn't been taught in school before, it only creates stress. Besides, one would argue that life in the workforce is full of sudden and urgent deadlines, so one would expect students to learn how to manage their time and deadlines before entering it. However, the huge difference is that many uni students already work, some of them full time and even more than one job. Their priority is to meet work deadlines, otherwise they won't be paid and can't afford food or rent. Hence, a more lenient policy at uni removes another stressor, giving them more headspace to actually work on their assignments. I'm a uni lecturer by the way.
I took Recreation and Leisure services about 11 years ago... I had a professor who hated tests. And would always offer an area at the bottom of the tests for us to put in things that we learned and such. He gave extra marks to make up for lost ones in other areas of the tests.
For the last exam he made us walk around the college and use our knowledge of program planning and facility management, and find areas that are good or could use improvement and why..
I have never been to an exam where the entire class was not stressed and completely tense 😊😊
Really cool teacher.That is coming from a teacher with 30 years experience.
That sounds like a great way to genuinely encourage learning! If you didn't do the readings you won't have any ideas for any of the buildings, but if you paid attention a normal amount and just forget some details, you'll still have lots of ideas.
As someone who struggled with prolonged grief and severe depression in college, I am so moved by your compassion
Back when I was in college, my brother in law had cancer (inoperable brain tumors), and died the Thursday before my Monday marketing final exam.
My family had to rearrange his burial so I could make that exam, and I spent the weekend of his wakes studying for a stupid exam that had zero impact on the rest of my life.
Thank you for letting students have lives outside your classroom.
And you have 300 students per semester??? That's crazy!
"It teaches them that it doesn't matter if you do your work on time"
It teaches them that the world is a harsh and unforgiving place... by you being harsh and unforgiving, so they go on to be harsh and unforgiving, so the world continues to be as harsh and unforgiving as it is, which subsequent generations of course need to be taught by their teachers being harsh and unforgiving.
Keeping up with the syllabus typically is far easier than catching up with it. When students fall behind, and manage to catch up and turn in every assignment, that's not laziness. That's someone who worked extra hard, on top of everything else they need to do, to make up for whatever happened in the past... and that's an undesirable attitude?
This idea that students can't learn to not do something unless you personally punish them for doing it is, ironically, a very uneducated view of teaching.
Reality is harsh and unforgiving, no one has to be taught that. By not preparing your students for reality you set them up for failure
@@mo.ka.9661 I presume you mean you need to "prepare your students" by being harsh and unforgiving? I disagree, for reasons already mentioned in my comment and in the video. But anyway.
Ok, so I've got this sentence here: "you need to _____ students a lesson by being harsh and forgiving". You said "no one has to be taught" that reality is harsh and unforgiving, so I presume you don't think the missing word is "teach". How about "prepare"? No, that doesn't really fit. Educate? No. Instruct? Nah. I'm sure we can find some synonym of "teach" that would fit in there, because you said this is something "no one" has to be taught.
@@mo.ka.9661it’s harsh and unforgiving because people are that way. We are all taught to be that way. We can change the rules when we want. The question is why don’t we want too
@@mo.ka.9661 reality is harsh and unforgiving? If we change our attitude, we change our reality. Otherwise we’d be continuing to imprison starving children for stealing a loaf of bread
@@mo.ka.9661then how about we change that reality, starting with being forgiving
"Maybe compassion is the lesson that many of our students are missing" ... Mic drop, man.
I do think hard deadlines are not the problem. The thing is having a good course and sufficient deadline to complete all the work in time even with accidents. Hard deadlines encourage students to complete stuff early and not leave it to last minute where stress may take over. And i don't mind teachers asking for proof. As i think the pros outweigh the cons. Extensions of deadlines should be issued in a serious event like maybe a emergency family visit due to health reasons or getting into a accident. I do believe and correct me if i am wrong but people are able to provide proof of this if given a sufficient time period to gather this information. Although depressive episodes are bad, i don't think they warrant a deadline extension.
Additionally I think one of the biggest issues in our world is that our society does not run in a trauma informed and compassionate way.
The majority of the businesses that I have experienced and worked for approach everything from a more narcissistic, less empathic view.
And if you ask me, I feel like that's what's killing all of us.
Yes!!! we should allways consider someones circumstances before choosing how to treat someone, everyone deserves good treatment, but if a person who has had many bad things happen to them fails on something, they shouldnt be punished the same as privledged people who are already good at the class and who might not even have a risk of not graduating
We never see people as human, we’re so caught up in our own lives that we fail to realize that others have lived with equally detailed experiences full of aspirations, grief, victories, and failures.
We are growing cold, saying “the same happened to me and I made it through just fine” it neglects that to those people the suffering they feel is very real, immediate, and tangible and that the current issues may not be equivalent to the ones of our past.
I'm almost done with university now. Having had a lot of mental health problems, it was extremely refreshing when one of the subjects I had this semester had a relaxed view on delivering late. I have months where I can't get out of bed and being able to deliver work when I was in a better mental space made the subject a lot less demanding and is probably the reason I am going to get a passing grade. Having to send an excuse every time I am late is not possible for everyone, so an open Policy (where possible) seems to me to be a really good way of leveling the playing field
I had a teacher my last quarter of college had the final paper due at 10am for a class that started around 2pm, and a final exam that happened at that time as well. Why 10am I have no idea. Without realizing it I turned in the paper when I went to the exam. She gave me a failing grade for the paper which made it so I didn’t graduate Summa Cum Laude. I was there everyday, went to her office hours despite her being in a building without a working elevator, and me using forearm crutches.
It completely killed all interest in Political Science for me. I remember information I learned in every one of my classes, that’s all I remember from hers.
this! more teachers should start to consider the students circumstances before punishing, i get if a teacher were to punish someone on being late if they allways have been lazy, disruptive and dificult to help, but why do it to someone who clearly is trying to learn?
Thank you Prof.
The other system is teaching them to accept the unacceptable in a workplace, micromanaging, justifying not turning out when sick but still doing your job, being ok with your manager expecting you to go overtime, many times with no compensation, adding extra responsibilities with the same compensation, etc.
When I entered the workforce I had to readjust to the idea that a lot of deadlines are arbitrary and it's good to push something back if the timeline is unfeasible.
@@alex_blue5802 Same, I was losing it over being late on reports until my boss, who's an angel told me to relax, things get delayed all the time and most of them are explainable.
That's the REAL WORLD of the essential worker.
You just had an aneurysm and can't speak or move. Do you want the nurse with a WORK ETHIC that keeps you turned and cleaned all night so you don't get bed sores? Or would you be ok with the one that leaves you lying in your p because she gets paid the same anyway and she's sad because of her divorce?
That's the REAL WORLD of the essential worker.
You just had an aneurysm and can't speak or move. Do you want the nurse with a WORK ETHIC that keeps you turned and cleaned all night so you don't get bed sores? Or would you be ok with the one that leaves you lying in your p because she gets paid the same anyway and she's sad because of her divorce?
@@3namechangezalowdevry90day7what I want is for my med team to have enough discretionary leave to take off of work when they’re underwater in their actual
lives. Not to have to show up when they aren’t >95%.
In the real world you speak of, medical error is the 8th leading cause of death in my country (US), and costs estimate between $20,000,000 to $45,000,000.
I’d rather my med team and I both be healthy.
i’ve also found that the teachers and professors most strict on their deadlines are the ones that won’t get a paper or exam back to you until a month later. the double standard is insane to me sometimes
I wish so many more teachers and professors would take this type of policy regarding late work. I’ve been struggling to keep up with all my assignments, and there was a point where I rushed an assignment that I would not have been proud to turn in, an assignment I ultimately didn’t get to turn in because it was a minute past the turn in time. It really sucks on both ends. This is the same school that, during orientation, said it was best if you just quit your job despite the high cost of tuition.
If there were just a little lenience on the late policy, where I wouldn’t need to literally hospitalized to get said lenience, I wouldn’t be stressing myself into actual illness trying to meet this school’s demands. There’d be parents who could take more than two days off to attend to their sick kids, or who could work their shift within needing to worry about hard deadlines.
As a 54 year old adult, i can tell you there are very few hard deadlines in Adultword.
Maybe there's some stuff like renewing your driver's license on time, but stuff in the corporate world gets rescheduled all the time. Often it's not even a big deal.
Meeting deadlines is the REAL WORLD of the essential worker.
You just had an accident and can't speak or move. Do you want your pain meds when the nurse "gets around to it"?
Do you want the nurse with a WORK ETHIC that keeps you turned and cleaned all night so you don't get bed sores? Or would you be ok with the one that leaves you lying in your p because she gets paid the same anyway and she's sad because of her divorce?
I think the person with the long name is missing the point
@@DeathnoteBB Ok, so, strict deadlines for those who serve you, but flexibility for yourself?
@@DeathnoteBB they have constructed a hypothetical in which someone does no work, not in which an arbitrary deadline was missed and the worker caught up when they could.
I've had 1 professor a few times at my university. He has no hard deadlines. I only turned in a paper late 1x in any of his classes. It was the 2nd out of 3 projects and I turned it in the last day assignments were accepted. I really struggled to understand this new format and style of paper. I went to office hours and utilized the librarian for my subject.
Once the professor graded it he commented that it was one of the most professionally sounding papers he ever read in that specific class and that it was worth the wait to read. It made me feel so much better because I really felt bad about turning it in so late, but I was struggling with comprehending all the new information.
I really appreciated his comment, AND he is writing one of my grad school letters of rec. 😊
As someone currently applying to PhD programs and one who aspires to become a professor, I feel this so hard. I’ve mentioned this on other videos on this channel but I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and have, even more recently, been referred to autism testing, at nearly 40 years old. My brain does not operate like those who are “neurotypical” but because I’ve learned to mask (essentially lie) I’ve had to learn how to operate in a world designed for and at the benefit of neurotypical people. Policies like these ones in this video provides me freedom of unbearable pain. For example, in my most recent semester of grad school, all my classes were under the guidelines that all work had to be turned in by the end of semester date but we could turn it in as early as possible. By building a rigorous schedule around my work, some of my final projects were turned in more than a month ahead of schedule. My toughest class, the one I felt was most daunting, I turned my final in at 3am, three hours after the deadline and accepted the fact that some points may be deducted. I didn’t even try to justify why it was turned in late and just accepted it. That professor didn’t even ask why it was late and just graded my work. I earned an A on the assignment and no points were deducted because the quality of the work spoke for itself. When asked, the arbitrary midnight deadline didn’t make sense because the professor wasn’t even awake when it occurred. As long as they were in by the time they started grading, there was no penalty. I was terribly skeptical of my abilities in grad school because I knew I operated differently than others but didn’t know why or how. Setting up policies like the one in this video helps to remove the terror of deadlines. I know in the “real world” there are consequences for going beyond some deadlines but those usually center around costs, not live-or-die situations. Compassion is a much better lesson than fear.
Most immediate immovable deadlines I can think of are in healthcare. And insurance companies certainly seem to treat those as flexible all the time.
So, I guess the only people who need rigid deadlines are med students etc.
The World Isn't designed to benefit neurotypical people. We're normally you're not. I'm left-handed, I don't b**** about the world not being designed to benefit left-handed people
@@steggopotamus The issue contrarians in the comments seem to be having with understanding this (aside from basic damn empathy and not being nihilistic boomers) is the conflation between WHAT deadlines we should and should not prioritize or are truly hardline! Some guy kept spamming about a nurse not meeting “a deadline” to give a patient their medicine when that’s an issue of routine procedure, not a deadline for a project nor time- and money-sensitive paperwork like payroll! If anything having too many hard deadlines for those last two RISKS making the nurse forget about their routine work to help patients by swamping then in paperwork that realistically is not and should not be higher priority than direct patient care!
Schools make this WORSE by forcing students to ignore or delay what would otherwise be far more consequential deadlines like medical procedures by arbitrarily declaring their deadlines as rigid and unmoving!
@@jemm113 good point. Everyone seems to ignore the most important limit to our lives, our health.
Ugh... Just ugh. Let's turn this society/political system off and turn it on again
IKR, I had an instructor that was super vague about when the deadline was for a significant paper, I don't agree with the people in this comment section, that is not a kindness. The work needs to be done and it needs to be done by a certain point in the class. If that isn't the case, then the work shouldn't be handed out at all. A well-designed course is going to depend on the homework being done at a certain point. Sometimes it's intended to be done before class and sometimes it's intended to be done shortly afterwards. But, if you wait too long, it becomes busy work that distracts from what is going on at that point.
Someone close to me was close to someone who suicide and wrongly felt responsible for his death. She was put on academic warning. She told an English professor and she said that she would give her an A+ no matter her grade. She did amazingly, processing her grief through her writing. What a win for them both.
You can't typically do that because it can result in issues when accreditation comes around. Regardless of what is going on for the students, accreditation is a pretty big deal. Even being put on probation can be enough to kill a school.
That being said, there are other options such as guaranteeing that the work could be handed in the next quarter as schools generally have some sort of provision for incompletes.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade Happily, it worked for them both. If you won't tell, I won't either.
I think it's different depending on the class though. For those large STEM classes with a lot of homework and graders, acceptting late work means a backlog for the TAs. That compromises the ability for the graders to actually do their work.
In my larger classes that used graders, that was the stated reason late work wasn't accepted, without an excuse that was in alignment with the student handbook.
It's true that some deadlines in the professional world can be adjusted but it's a lot less acceptable when one person's misses deadline means another person's overload or scramble.
That's why the grade penalty is given: it's a soft sign that the student can't keep up the pace in that class. Grades aren't a reflection of intellect or capability, but mainly of performance. Meeting deadlines is a performance standard in enough professional environments to make this a relevant concern, and grades are used to signal a student's history of meeting that standard.
I work in an environment where missing deadlines causes issues, and it's challenging because im awful with time management. But the standard is in place to keep a certain level of productivity which is important in my field.
I was having difficulty getting my assignments in by the midnight deadline. I was getting them in up to 30 minutes late. No more than 30 minutes. I cried so many nights feeling like a failure and worrying about the 20% reduction in points I got every time.
I know how you feel. I once broke down over a homework assignment that I realized I wouldn't finish in time, and I literally gave myself a concussion beating myself in my distress. Over a fucking homework assignment just because I couldn't afford to fail a class. I think people don't realize how misfortunes stack upon each other. I'm not wealthy so I have to work so I have less time. I'm physically ill so everything takes me energy so I need to rest more so I have less time. I have no money to retake classes nor time to stay in school for an extra semester just to have a lower course load (especially because my tuition reducation runs out after 8 semesters). What is just an inconvenience for someone who can afford to retake, to take fewer classes, to study after class instead of work, to have a lower GPA because they know someone who can get them a job, their little inconvenience of missing an assignment is my "this might ruin everything and there's nothing I can do". That hopelessness and stress causes me to get sick more, have mental problems, and ultimately give myself a concussion causing permanent damage to myself. Now I'm not going to pretend that that was a rational response to my situation, obviously I should have chosen better, but at a certain point it's hard to imagine how I could have. I think people forget that their harshness is just one of many in the lives of some of their students, and that it can be enough to push them over the edge. I was a semipro fighter in the past and now I can never go back because of that concussion. I'm probably permanently less smart because of it too. It's not like it isn't my fault, but it's also so frustrating to know that just one thing not going wrong would have prevented so much suffering, all it would have taken is an extension.
So true about the opening up. A lot of teachers evaluate if your trauma is valid enough for you to miss class or need extensions or other help. It's sickening. And as someone who has a hard time processing and especially cannot work when I am not regulated, this is too much of an ask--to force students to come to you with their trauma and then tell them if you think it's "enough".
I've never had something insanely traumatic happen, but I always think about how it would be if I did. I'd have to go tell minimum one person "my mom was brutally assaulted and murdered yesterday, here's the death certificate and a news article about it" immediately to qualify for any kind o fhelp under my university's official policy. I'm glad they have the option to tell someone who will inform professors "you must allow this student extensions until x date" without the reason attached, but even so you still have to find a way to tell some stranger about the worst event of your life immediately after it happens. It's kind of a ridiculous idea, imagine if at work you said "my wife died, I need to take some time off" and they asked for a death certificate?? That would be a reason to quit on the spot, that's insane.
I manage employees at work. I just had someone need to go home early to deal with some emotions relating to situations in his life I don't know about. He struggled for a moment trying to find the words to justify it so I reminded him that he doesn't need to explain anything. If he needed to go, he could go. Being kind to my employees doesn't make them less productive. Same with kids in school.
@@Starrfizz I wish more people had this mindset. Would have caused so many people less trauma.
I had professors of both extremes, and knew a fair number of students who were zealously in favor of one perspective over the other, but in business and industry one thing became very clear: everyone CLAIMS that the schedules are iron-clad with terrible consequences for missing deadlines, but the truth is always a messy collection of fine-print caveats that stretch on for years and routinely blow through budget projections like bowling pins. Demanding excellence and holding people accountable to what they wrote just pisses off management.
In the real world if a project is late you don't just... give up on it. You still do the work and the company gets paid for it.
@@alex_blue5802 one question though, do you get any punishment? cause like, i wouldnt expect people to just give up if there wasnt a dedline but i wouldnt expect for something to be perfect and everyone be 100% happy
@@marmolejomartinezjoseemili9043 Nothing as extreme as that. I work in web development, and it's hard to say for sure how long it will take to add a new feature or fix a bug. Sometimes a task is more complicated than expected, or some higher priority work comes up. In a big company there will be a separate person handling the relationship with the client and setting priorities, so I can't give too much insight into that dynamic. If things go very wrong the client may choose to terminate the contract, but that is an expensive decision and not taken lightly. If the project is a little late but otherwise successful, they are usually satisfied. As a developer it's my job to try to get things done on time, but also communicate early if they are falling behind so the client can be informed. Both are important skills, and a developer that lacks either of them may not succeed. In an extreme case they might be fired, but that is also an expensive decision for the company and not taken lightly.
@@alex_blue5802 Not really, you'd be surprised how much office BS doesn't need to be done at all. A lot of jobs no longer require 40 hours of actual work to get done, so a bunch of stuff was added in order to justify having people there for 40 hours rather than cutting back to 20 hours and just doubling the pay rate.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade true, I was thinking of something with actual value. If it's just busywork maybe no one cares.
I had a professor with no late work policy. She's an incredible teacher, and has won all the awards you possibly can. I had a class with her in the midst of covid, when I was forced to take entirely online classes (without ever having done online), while also working for the first time. It was a hard time in general, and that class (that everyone gets an A in) I ended up failing. And it was purely because there was no penalty, so it allowed me to put it on the back burner. Eventually I retook the class when things were in person again, and I passed with flying colors, and another of her classes I took as an incomplete (a one year extension) and was able to finish without retaking. Even though it started as a failure, I think it ultimately served me because I was able to continue to do well in other classes with hard deadlines. The most crucial element in my making it through my degree was the professors who were so willing to work with me and do everything they can to help me succeed. Thank you for being so firm in your compassion. You are an amazing person 💛
This brings up a good point too. Is that a lot of the time deadlines aren't explicitly stated or enforced. Like my driver's license is expiring soon, no one is banging down my door to get it renewed. A loose deadline policy helps people recognize if they have to implement better internal systems to stay on top of life regardless on the reasons why they missed the deadlines.
@@steggopotamus my opinion is that both should exist. Hard deadlines can whip me into shape, but compassion and mercy from the deadline-giver I think should always exist. Sometimes a hard deadline can prompt someone to reach out for accommodation--and then discover a kindness that wasn't known beforehand. It's a hard balance. How strict and how flexible should we be? We are all learning.
this is why i do think there should be a slight penalty, cause like, in my experience, if theres no penalty i (and many others) expect the class to be less dificult and it ends up not allways being that way sometimes (sometimes it is easy though), so like, just so that students still have their mind on the class, a light punishment like: 9/10 on the work if you give it a day later, and 8/10 if you give it one week later or something like that, should still be put in practice but idk, its just my opinion
As someone in the professional world, I don't need employees who meet deadlines. I have to deal with employees who lack empathy, and it has caused me to lose business. Compassion is the much better lesson here.
My study program had 9 exams in the first semester. 5 of those had failure rates between 70 and 80%. It was working exactly as intended.
I taught 8th grade. If I had that policy every kid would have turned in whatever they had on the last day of the year. Later, I had a senior scrounge notebooks. from friends, filled a new notebook with as much as she could find, handed it in and asked if she could get an A (which she needed to graduate). She failed to notice other students' names on the papers. Of course her parents demanded an explanation, but when they saw the mess and the numerous letters and my phone log and her many efforts to be sure we never communicated, they decided summer school would be a great idea for her.
My experience, as a parent of a soon-to-be 8th grader, is that what she needs is to avoid that is not deadlines as such, but learning how to budget time. Deadlines at that age are a motivation to learn how to budget time, and I think a lot of students muddle through and figure it out for themselves, but they're sort of like throwing kids in the pool rather than giving them swimming lessons.
For 6th grade, my kid's school has a plan where the majority of the work on "homework" is actually done in class. That way they can guide the kids through the process of sitting down and doing work, and it also means that the kids don't need to schedule the time to work on things (and they can't put off working on it). They move that to mostly working at home by 8th grade, but it's a gradual process with guidance.
And it's still possible to teach students that doing the work by the due date matters, without making it part of their grade. Break the work up into segments, and set it up so the feedback you give them on early segments will make the later segments easier. Do the "you can resubmit as many times as you want" thing, and set it up so that they will want to get at least one round of that, and that becomes a carrot rather than a stick for doing the work on time. And so on.
But I think the point he makes at the beginning of the video is the important one: The important thing is the idea of a trauma-informed and compassionate attitude, not the specific policy. And, indeed, maybe this specific policy wouldn't work for 8th graders in the school you taught in, but the attitude -- and the recognition of why hard arbitrary deadlines and "documentation" requirements for exceptions can harm students, and figuring out a compassionate way to mitigate that -- is the real point.
I really appreciate this video. I was diagnosed at 32 with ADHD. I did a million extracurricular activities and had a two-page resumé by the time I was 20 (my college career coach said I could keep the length and that I’m the only student he ever told that to). I used to hand in things late frequently due to the sheer volume of things to get done on several arbitrary schedules, and also I’d get inspired and really go the extra mile with my projects. I’ve had teachers frequently tell the class that this was the best XYZ project they ever saw, etc. The problem is that my school’s late policy was 50% per day. So that brought my grades down to an 89%. I got told by my high school college counselor that I wouldn’t be able to make it to my top schools (she didn’t even look at my extracurriculars) based on that missing 1%. I’ve spent my whole life trying to recover from this trauma of feeling incompetent for handing things late, for not knowing what’s wrong with me, never even going for what I want in life because I’m afraid to fail, even if it’s just by being a little bit late.
I taught math at a CC. My dead line for our of class assignments was the term end. Now I also allowed do overs for students that turned the assignments on a regular basis. My assignments were made for my students to practice the skills and improve; not to give busy work.
Absolutely spot on!
Starts with your printer breaking down on the day and ends with horrible life situations.
And especially kids who have dealt with abuse - a big part of their experience is that other people invalidate their experience by not understanding, downplaying and dismissing the kids experience. A big part of Trauma is not that something bad happened, but that everyone plays it off as "nothing" or "not bad enough" and expects you to go on as if all was well and to keep delivering. Because it gives the kids the notion that what happened is normal and their experience and struggle is the ab norm and basically that they are at fault for suffering and struggling.
I have experienced being presented with the choice to relive a week of my trauma or repeat a year of my studies due to the lack of points i'd have by not attending that week. This was done by some random professor who had never met me. I pleaded for an alternate assignment. He insisted I needed to face it. And when I found out I could reach the necessary points another way with another course, the prof had the audacity to be "disappointed it was just a question of points" for me.
Well that sounds like it's inherently built into the system that points are what decide on a year's worth of money and time to retake courses in order not to be retraumatized.
Unfortunately that was not the only time teachers forced students to choose between reliving trauma and failing classes I have witnessed in my years at school. Including dragging kids out in front of the class for their trauma.
This needs to get better
anti-late work policies just resulted in me refusing to turn in anything late ever at all and just take the 0 rather than feel the humiliation of trying to beg and plead with a teacher for my score. I would rather just fail.
The anxiety of a hard deadline definitely does wonders for those with ADHD, even if it's dysfunctional. I think if I didn't have hard deadlines at all (and began to see late admissions as having gotten rid of the deadline altogether) then I would have this problem as well. I think it calls for more creative problem-solving on the school's side, maybe taking each on a case-by-case basis, and I could see a "you can turn it in within this window of time but after that there will be consequences" attempt being made, if for no other reason than to penalize the procrastination itself; but, as another commenter said, carrots > sticks, in terms of motivation
Thank you for being outspoken and compassionate.
When I was in college, the man I loved was killed in a car accident. Because we weren’t **legally** married or anything, my professors were unsympathetic and uncaring of the fact that I had experienced a devastating loss that actually changed the course of my life, and which has affected me deeply over the intervening twenty plus years.
It was a defining moment of my adult life, but there was no paperwork or anything, so the professors and the university didn’t care or consider it a valid reason for late work.
I had to fight hard just to withdraw from the course it affected most heavily without penalty to my GPA.
I am grateful that the arbitrary rigid mentality is starting to change thanks in large part to educators like you, and I hope that someday people going through traumatic events or just getting sick or whatever, won’t have to deal with it being made even worse by such elitist BS.
I almost cried at the end when you talk about your students being honest with you and teaching examples of compassion
I think there is something wrong with an education system where only the student is expected to learn. I think both the educators and the system itself had a responsibility to learn. Clearly, the old system of rigid deadlines hurts students who are struggling in life. That is reason enough to change the system if your loyalty is to the students and not the education system.🤗❤️🐝
If everybody has the responsibility to learn including the "system" (university?) and the professor, why should the student pay so much and the others make money?
And what of the other students then? The ones that need for the other students to have actually done the work so they're prepared for class? Or, the ones that do the homework which is effectively now optional as the instructor can't assume that the work is going to be done on schedule?
Having provisions for when life happens is one thing, but not having any penalties for late work ever is deeply problematic. If the outside class work is that unimportant, then don't assign it.
Almost exclusively all my college classes (for years!) had tests/homework the same week or day.
Oh my god thank you!!! I am a teacher, I keep having this debate with colleagues, and I keep questioning myself for "not being strict enough". But I do feel I am "strict enough" if I consistently do get less late work, better quality papers and happier students!! Also yes to the point that it saves a lot of time correcting these papers, which is exactly what I have found as well. Thank you for sharing your experience, as you've been doing this longer than I have and therefore I always thought of my experiences as "anecdotes" and not "data", and therefore did not trust my own gut feeling.
A couple of years ago I was in an abusive relationship that resulted in quite a few visits to the ER. Trying to get a 2-week extension for an assignment was a NIGHTMARE. Even though I had proof of the care I'd received in the ER, I needed a note from my GP stating that I had been unable to work for at least 2 weeks. I ended up just failing cause I didn't have the money to get an official note, and I was pretty sure that getting my GP involved would result in a police report being filed, which I wasn't ready for at that point. I really believe you're doing a great thing, allowing students to hand in late work without penalties. Having a professor like you would have saved me a lot of trouble.
(For anyone wondering, I'm doing fine now! I'm SO happy being single, and while it did take me a year to catch up on the classes I missed/failed, I'm about to graduate from my BSc programme this summer!)
I would've felt so much less pressure (aka anxiety and panic attacks ) when going to school if i had teachers and professors like this!
and to have teachers (and bosses) understand depressive episodes makes life so much less alone to were it's not AS hard to finish the task or project.
Or... you could have acted like an adult and do your work on time like your better classmates.
I wish some of my old professors had this policy, crap happens in life, yeah, you can maybe get an extension but even trying to get that can be stressful/hard. Knowing that you need just an extra day to write a really great essay/thesis/report etc and can actually use that day, no questions asked unless you want to share would really take A LOT of stress off of students
"It teaches them that it doesn't matter if you do your work on time." Oh, so just like real life. Hard deadlines are, as the prof said, arbitrary. How many trials get delayed, how many doctors appointments and surgeries get rescheduled, how many extensions do editors and reviewers get, how many temporary stop-gap funding measures does Congress pass, and so on and so on and so on?
And if that's for stuff that matters, then certainly a homework assignment that ultimately only reflects the professor's subjective view on both what and how to assess students can be turned in a day or two late without the world falling down.
I had an assignment that I was one day late on. I even tried to work with the professor, but she refused to take it after midnight. The reason it was late was I had to drive my dad to the VA hospital for an extremely important round of testing (4 day trip, most of the time allotted to complete the assignment). Thing was worth 1/4th of my grade. Put so much time into it- but I needed internet connection to research for it. I some how did manage to get it done before midnight- thanks to wi-fi at the hospital and the hotel, but the hotel's internet stopped working right when I was about to send it.
Still bitter. BUT in hindsight it was for the best. As well put together as it was, it was on a subject that I am now ashamed of. She refused to even look at the cover page. So I feel more gratitude than anger, but it does still bother me. If an exception is going to be made, I think that is one that should qualify. She did not accept ANY exceptions at all. Even personal health. On the other hand I was allowed extra credit for something so I still got an A in the class.
As a fellow educator who would have dropped out of grad school without my program director and a few of my professors who had the same mindset as you, thank you!
I'm so grateful for this truly people look at me like I'm crazy when I say my program director is on the shortlist of people I'd donate an organ to but she was the one who gave extensions, hours of help to me and my cohort, saw when I was near tears and stepped in to help, listened when I explained my fear that Id have to leave the program due to financial concerns (family death, divorce, and becoming a single mom all in 1 month) and she instead gave me a flexible schedule, talked to my supervisor about working remote, and literally called up my advisor to come over for "wine and sign student up for scholarships/grants" night. Without all of that, I wouldn't be where I am. I'm grateful to her so much!
i had a few classes where the professors would be very upfront about why they wouldn't be taking late work in the very first class. it was always very sensible. and then in other classes where we could send stuff late, it was more of a 'so long as there is work for me to grade, we'll figure it out'. in cases where the professor was strict for no reason and with no explanation, people would sometimes just drop the class. just didn't want to deal with that In Case something did happen.
My final semester before getting my degree, my wife and daughter had to go to the emergency room. My other daughter was sick. I emailed the professor about the situation and informed them i would get the work in, but it would be a little late. I also worked a full time job about 60 hours a week and a full time student. That professor showed no compassion and i failed the semwster. It was accelerated classes so i took the class again in the "B" part of the semester and passed that time.
Professor was well within their right to fail me, but i still find it disrespectful. The college got me to pay for 1 more class. Worst waste of time and money i ever made.
Many years ago when I was in college I started tutoring other students. I was really good at it too. The very last semester just before finals I got super bad flu that got into my ears and I still have vertigo from it. Even riding public transit made me dizzy AF. Because of this (I was in a Fine Art School, so less testing and more huge final project) I got behind on a final project and to make up I did a 72 hour no sleep coming off of a horrible flue and then got so tired I couldn't make sense of my project anymore. I started to have a Panic attack in one of my classes because I wasn't able to finish and was convinced that I was going to fail and was pulled out into the hallway where another one of my instructors saw and came over to help. She also noticed I was struggling when I shouldn't be. Both instructor's response to my panic attack was there was no way we would ever fail me. They literally gave me the grade I would have gotten had I not gotten sick, based on my ability to bring failing students up to straight-A students. They looked me in the eye and said I knew this information and my skills were higher than any other student in the school. A few months before this I had received an award for being one of the top 10 students in the college and not just in my degree, but all of them.
I came out of the military with SEVERE anxiety issues. There were times when it was so bad, I wouldn't leave my home for days, even if I was out of food and had no other way to get it other than to leave the house.
If every one of my teachers was like you (OP) I would have graduated college years faster than I did.
Keep it up. You're making the world a better place. ❤️
As a student, I appreciated deadlines. In all my classes where the deadlines were too “soft” I ended up with 8 hours of work to do two days before finals. Not because I didn’t want to do the work, but because I was mentally unwell enough that I just kept procrastinating.
The present threat of my grade being affected _right now_ was enough to kick me into gear for my other classes, and I was better off for it. My “trauma” (let’s try not to water down the word) was mitigated by the deadlines.
Obviously, he’s doing something right if his students aren’t having this issue, but I’m curious to know why.
He probably tried to mitigate it with like reminding his students of the soft deadline. Deadlines are guidelines for when you should be done with it on so I don't think he's trying to delete it. The point of no late policy isn't just to be accommodating for everyone, but also make for a way to better communication. When students know they'll get shut down for any extension, they'll lose interest and just stop talking.
@@xaf15001 imo i think the best strategy is to not be super harsh on deadlines, but still take some slight amount off if the assingment is late just so that people see that you are a serious teacher and for them to try to give the assingments as early so they dont lose anything
i think its probably the fact that he might be in a school where most people are waay harsher? idk maybe its something else, cause for me, the thing that works the best, as in, it works for everybody is to give deadlines that do give punishment but a very slight one, like, think of it as a videogame, some videogames kill you for not doing something, this would be like the zone in fornite which doesnt kill you inmediatelly but still gives you some damage to warn you to not be there for too long.
@@xaf15001 It doesn't accommodate everybody. ADDers in particular struggle to work in an environment like that. Just put the policy in the syllabus and the students can figure it out. My mother used to give the students a couple of late homework vouchers and once they'd been used, somebody had better be bleeding out if you want another late assignment.
But, soft deadlines are not deadlines. A dead line refers to the drop dead date as in the date after which there's no point in handing anything in. We don't need to be that literal, but if we treat the deadline as if it's optional, then there's no reason to hand one out anyways as the students know more about their schedules than the teacher does.
I once asked a prof for more time because I wanted to go deeper into the topic. He sat on the floor next to his shelves with me and tossed over a bunch of relevant books, saying, "Take as much time as you need." Great man.
Not accepting late work is essentially disincentivizing students from learning and practicing if they miss the deadline
Not accepting it all is just as bad as accepting it whenever the students feel like handing it in with no consequences. The ideal policy lies somewhere in the middle.
That last point is really all that should need to be said. We NEED to be teaching compassion, in every class, in every moment.
As always I love and so appreciate when you talk about this. One semester in college I told my professors why I was a bit withdrawn as my grandmother had died and I had a lot going on, I wasn't even late on assignments just not participating a lot. A month later another of my grandmothers died, I happen to have extra from being in foster care and this was my foster mom's mom but even so "normal" families still have two grandmothers. Anyway I again told my professors and one looked straight at me and said, you already used that excuse last month I don't believe you. This was nearly 30 years ago and I'm still mad about it. At the time I was mad he thought I was so stupid I’d lie and tell the same one twice but later on I was just so hurt that while I was going through an awful time he had to make it so much worse. I also learned not to tell most teachers what was actually going on but instead a palatable story. The good thing to come out of this was that it informed my own teaching and I believed my students always, which it turns out helped the little ones 6-7-8 test out lying (very obviously) early on in the year, as mids do, and often they then would feel that they had to explain to me that they had made something up and often didn't actually lie to me, they'd tell me if they wanted to tell a tall tale but they trusted me with the truth in a lot of tough situations because I showed them I trusted them to tell the truth. Kids and young adults will live up to expectations if you let them. Anyway just wanted to say thanks for this.
That's lovely how you approach the lies from the 6-7-8-age kids. It teaches them that lying isn't needed and that there are natural consequences to the lie, rather than just teaching them to not get caught in their lies.
I had a math teacher that fabulously supported me when I lost my home (burned) and lost my grandpa the same weekend. She was an amazing teacher before already. She never asked me to prove it. Never asked me for a death certificate or proof my house was gone, she just trusted me that I'd get the work done and I did. She was absolutely awesome.
I don't have the clock app installed, but I looked up this guy's video and I'm comforted that he doesn't have nearly as much engagement as your similar videos on there.
People like to draw conclusions without evidence and then act like they're being logical. I guess it is one form of logic in the strictest sense (adhering to a consistent set of rules), but it's not scientific, which is the only logic most people really care about, (which is to say, a set of rules that are relevant to reality and produce consistent and verifiable results that can be tested rigorously).
They end up thinking that because other people agree with them about a system that was set up before science tested it's effectiveness that they're in reality, but they're in a warped bubble of society that just feels like real life.
This is one of many channels that make me proud to be a millennial.
I have been working for the last 10 years. Just last year I started a job at a small chocolate factory and my direct boss & coworkers actually care about me as a human being. This is the first job where I could actually be myself and not be a problem. Where I can communicate and not be looked at as disrespectful.
You’re right, compassion is the answer. Leaving room for people to *breathe*- is the answer.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
As someone who struggled with a lot of trauma, it's so good to hear that they're are teachers/professors who understand us and don't punish us for struggling with trauma.
I was always very open about mine, but they told me that "ot can't be your excuse forever".
They just don't understand how long it can take to work through it and how painful the flashbacks are. They judge you for not being over it after a few months or even years.
Thank you for being understanding.
The world needs more people like you.
And why can't it be your "excuse" forever? The real world tends to be full of choices of how to arrange work to fit what you're good at doing and avoid the things that are personally difficult. Sometimes those choices come at the cost of lower pay or things being harder in other ways, but they're still there.
Bless you man 😢
My college refused to offer any accommodations for my adhd, but I had one professor who let me disregard deadlines and it took so much pressure off that I was actually able to learn and produce quality work instead. I am still grateful for that SIMPLE, easily implemented kindness years later.
As a student with multiple chronic illnesses, I am very grateful for the fact that I can hand in work late without penalties. Enforcing harsh deadlines won’t do anything to help me because whether I can complete them on time is almost completely out of my hands.
Professors like you have saved my life! Literally. Thank you so much. I’m currently in a tangled mess of grieving a traumatic event, and now also grieving the impact it has had on my academic record. I’m only human. Why is it okay for 2 years of academic excellence to be tarnished by one month of trauma recovery? (Obviously recovery usually takes longer than a month. That was just the amount of time left in the class I was taking when the event happened). But that’s just the insult, the injury is having to retake the class and pay for it twice both in money and in time! Fortunately my dean is stepping in. But it’s caused so much extra stress to get this all worked out. And the professor wasn’t even a strict teacher, he was simply unreachable and then left 🤷 I don’t know if he quit or was fired. It’s all very weird and confusing. Difficult time. But here I am pulling through
I also kind of hate when professors who have been required to provide extended deadlines then refuse to answer questions or give critique after the original due date. It’s so unnecessarily obtuse! The professor has been required to give an extension in the context of a student’s wellbeing. What justification do they have for then making you do the assignment without any aid or clarification? And if the next assignment builds on the professor’s critique of the extended assignment, how the hell am I supposed to do a good job on the next assignment if the critique is withheld?? And some professors pull this shit simply because you didn’t “ask earlier in the week.” Even without an extension, but have simply asked a question or had a technical difficulty a day or two before the official due date. Such unnecessary behavior! I’m a full fledged adult. I have a job and bills. I’m CHOOSING to go back to school at the same time. I’m PAYING for them to teach me. And they have the nerve to try to hamstring me because I wasn’t able to do the assignment a week ahead of their deadline-when I’m not even late on the assignment?? It’s just so demoralizing for hardworking students
This is one of the many reasons why I feel so blessed that I can homeschool at this time. The education system needs an overhaul and to incorporate nuance and flexibility for educators and students. Not everyone teaches the same, nor learns the same.
Absolutely. And what a great way to be able to teach your kids actual time-management skills so that they'll be able to reliably meet real deadlines when they need to!
It’s not about not teaching time management skills. You’re making assumptions and you’re missing the nuance here. It’s not black & white…
It’s about understanding that not everyone is driven by the same learning methodologies. That there can be a place where one learns how to balance priorities without anxiety driven consequence. It’s about so much more than I can give proper justice to in a comment.
If you know, you know. If you don’t, just stick to whatever feels right for you. If it doesn’t feel right, be open to and try other ways. “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” To each their own.
In the end… "Every path is the right path. Everything could've been anything else. And it would have just as much meaning." ✌️
Step out of the box… especially the box that holds the fears of the stories we create about the future and the past. 🕊️
Having flexibility during the learning process does not immediately equate to the polar opposite of not learning time management skills. It does not need to be that rigid… and this fear around the concept is what perpetuates this idea.
@@BrooksMoses Hahaha, I don't subscribe to your fear-based philosophies... and no one said anything about NOT teaching time management skills. Nice try, though.
Devil's advocate here. I have a daughter who just graduated high school with honors and is on her way to college. She absolutely hates teachers who will take late work. If a teacher says they'll take work up to the last week of class. She will procrastinate like crazy and cause herself all kinds of stress. She gets it done, but its not ideal. Can't win with every kid no matter what you do.
That’s an issue of not learning actual time management. That’s using deadlines set by others as a crutch. As someone in that same boat as her as a diagnosed procrastinator-perfectionist unless she already learned the skills and practiced them, she will have a bad time outside of an environment that set it up for her.
I was that kid too :)
I'd this is actually the best environment for her to learn time management. With strict deadline it'll be hard for her to notice her procrastination habits, but now that she knows she hates procrastinating them, she could try find a way to fix it.
yeah, thats why i think we should still have at least some light punishment, not much but still something
@@jemm113 It can be, it can also be an issue of ADHD or some other neurodevelopmental disorder. Just because somebody graduates with honors does not mean they don't have a disability that impacts executive functioning.
I’m not in school, but I appreciate this mindset SO much. Thank you so much for caring about your students and empowering them to succeed. Compassion is the lesson.
I had some of the best professors at the community college I went to. (Back in 2011-13)
I had a sickly daughter that was in the hospital a lot. They all let me keep my phone and ringer on and if I missed a day they would let me make it up.
I only had to drop a few classes in those years because of being in the hospital and they were ones like Japanese, where missing a couple classes was missing a lot.
I was in the middle of my second to last semester, when she passed away and the day before her funeral I went to the college to drop out of all the classes. My professors were wonderful and took time to make sure I took incompletes and didn't give up on myself and my future.
My photography teacher especially sat me down and talked to me about how my future is still important and made me promise to myself to come back and finish after grieving.
I didn't, but eventually I did start caring about myself again.
as someone who just had a really rough semester i super appreciate my professors that helped me like this. one of my favorite high school teachers also had this policy that he explained like "if you're absent for a few days or having something come up and you fall behind, you can do my work last, because i know other teachers are very strict about deadlines and you have 6 other classes to make up in addition to mine, so just talk to me and we can work it out" this was totally unexpected coming from a very old math teacher that retired the next year, but i felt way more relaxed and comfortable in his class and more able to learn. having him teach me algebra and geometry basics really set me up well for future math classes
I have one kid who’s graduated high school and is in college. I have twins still in HS. The late work policies infuriated me.
Why tf does a kid need to turn in a math assignment by midnight on Friday? Class isn’t until Monday; and the online Canvas system is going to grade it anyway.
My kids have dealt with an epidemic of teachers not grading work in a timely manner, not entering grades into a grade book for weeks, and not following one kid’s 504 plan.
Do have of them get their pay docked (their equivalent of “points off”). Hell no. The district hold untrained, unpaid, immature, still developing children to a higher standard than they hold their own college educated, certified, paid adults.
And I bet the teacher/prof in that video has never had his pay docked for being late on anything else either.
I love you dude. "Maybe compassion IS the lesson" You make so much sense.
I would have loved to have had a teacher like you. Wo actually Care about your students 4:48
I love this point of view. My child thrives in classrooms like that. The reduced stress allows her to relax and learn the stuff, where the deadlines make her anxious and less effective.
Thank you for mentioning the curve!
I didn't get a double major because I had to skip a course that was just on how to write psych papers, but didn't explain how!
They had a curve and didn't tell you where you landed on it. Just that you did everything wrong and hope that you're 40% grade is the higher end of scoring.
What is that teaching me regarding how to practice psychology? They're just bad instructors.
Also, I am getting into teaching ESL. I forgot you teach. I'm gonna see what I can implement that you discuss, in my classes when I start. I want to teach, not berate people for having a complicated life.
When I was teaching, I realized at one point that I didn't want students to get a better outcome if they lied to me. My late policy then got much looser with no noticeable difference in the amount of late work. Doing things according to the schedule is easier for most students.
I learned two things just by being alive:
1. Most people want to work, and do a good job at work that they are passionate about.
2. Trying to get the rest to do any real work is actually harder than just giving them a basic pass in life and ignoring them. They will literally work much harder to not work than it would be to just contribute to society.
One class I took at university had the pass grade only based on hand-ins, if you wanted a higher grade you could take an oral but that was up to the students. The hand-ins had no deadline at all, the professor essentially said "I would prefer if you handed in these dates because it makes grading easier, but if you want hand them in after christmas or whenever." (This was said in september.) Wonderful course and professor.
Wish I had your same experience, but my experience in high school was that students 90% did not turn in work on time. Most waited until the end of the quarter to see what their grade was going to be and turned exactly enough work to pass. I had 3 students who tried to turn in an entire quarters worth of work the day before the end of the quarter. It was partially completed with poor quality. It was especially disappointing because students were given a lot of time in class so it wasn’t even homework. Our statistics for poverty were similar to yours. Maybe college kids can handle it better? Middle and high school students struggled. It became like a snowball because they weren’t learning because they didn’t do the work so the next assignment was even harder so they procrastinated even more until they didn’t even know where to start to try to catch up. ( it was a school wide policy grades 6-12) Unfortunately, we know we have a lot of students who go to community college and drop out semester 1
College may be different because it's a thing where the students are there by choice, but (as a parent of a middle-schooler) I think there's also an aspect where middle school students need to be taught how to budget time and get things done. Hard deadlines with no practical teaching of time-management skills feel to me somewhat like throwing the kids into a pool rather than giving them swim lessons. And just having the one hard end-of-quarter deadline is like using the deep end of the pool for that. Using the shallow end first is certainly better than that because it tends to avoid drowning before the kids figure out how to splash themselves above water, but I don't think that makes it a great teaching method.
One thing my kid's school is doing is setting up 6th-grade "homework" so it's mostly done at school, which means the kids learn how to do the work without first needing to learn how to set aside time to do the work. And then they gradually increase the outside-of-school work, along with providing instruction, so that by the time the kids finish 8th grade and leave for high school they have the skills do do that themselves.
The part with kids who waited to see what their grade would be and then turned in exactly enough work to pass sounds like a hard problem, though. I feel like that's a bit of a "you can lead the horse to water, but you can't make it drink" problem; their goal is to get a passing grade with minimal work, and the teacher isn't in a position to change that goal. So, maybe meet them where they are: If they turn in work early, they get to see what their "if they don't do any more work" grade will be more quickly, and maybe halfway through the year they can stop doing homework and skip exams if they want. But that also gives them half a year to decide that maybe a better grade is worthwhile after all.
Also personally I've found the "you can resubmit with rework, with no penalty" thing helps, especially in combination with having high standards for the final result. If the kids learn from their peers that repeated resubmitting is by far the easiest way to get a good grade, then there's a carrot for doing things early enough for that to happen.
@@BrooksMoses i like your last sentence, cause i do think its just way to easy and not fair if two students get the same treatment for doing something in diferent times, it insentivises them to not want to do it on time, but i also think they shouldnt get that much punishment, so i think something like giving them some advantage if they turn it in early whilst not punishing the ones who get it late solves both of these things!
as someone with ADHD flexible deadlines help me EXTREMELY which i havent had until grad school and it has made sure i pass unlike in undergrad where i was severely anxious and suicidal and put my school work over my physical and mental health because of these deadlines because i had to do it or i would fail in my eyes. having this flexibility and grace given to me by my teachers has ensured that i have not only improved my trauma with prioritizing my mental health and much needed trauma informed therapy but also made it to where i have not only made a 4.0 this semester but every single semester of grad school. in my eyes its worth the weight of the world to be kind and gracious to the students with this small factor.
The Speech Prof: “there is still a fundamental issue with any course that has a 70% fail rate.”
U of M’s Engineering College: …👀
Ayup. A lot of engineering colleges have some fundamental issues like that.
@@BrooksMoses the worst curve I saw at the University of Michigan was on a calculus final, where the average was about 30%
@@BrooksMoses but around 60% was normal
I was a valedictorian in high school, graduated from honors college with an engineering degree and minors in music and mathematics. Most of my classes had very strict, absolute deadlines. I missed 15% of my senior year of high school because of anxiety and started having hyperventilating panic attacks during tests in college (the panic attacks were not new; not being able to suppress them in public settings was). I was already burnt out in five years into my career, with a plan to save up money for a year and then quit. That was 2019. I got laid off in 2020, and, while I now have a shiny new masters degree with president’s honors, I’ve been recovering from the collective burnout and trauma of the first 27 years of my life ever since then. Even now, three and a half years later, I’m struggling immensely with the fear of burning out again, and it impacts most aspects of my life.
I failed my second year of uni because I had extreme depression. I can't explain to you how I felt, but I was not... there... I was alive, but not really. I genuinely saw no world where it would get better.
I failed one subject (not the professor's fault - I messed up), and I would have failed German as well, but my professor sent me an email asking about my absence in class and why my essay hasn't been handed in.
We had a long conversation about why and he said he will give me an extention. So I said I can get it to him in 2 days and he said "No, you have 2 weeks. Take your time and send me one you are proud of."
I took the 2 weeks and got 83% (with some very stern critiques about mistakes I made). This was the first time in a while I saw a world where it got better.
He didn't ask for a doctor's certificate. He just gave me the grace I needed without any late penalty.
As someone who made it all the way to a Masters with undiagnosed ADHD (diagnosed a decade later), THANK YOU. It's not cute to call students "lazy" and "unmotivated" when we are dealing with a lack of the motivation chemical in the brain, and executive dysfunction. Sometimes things can ONLY get done in a last minute rush. I had to take multiple extensions, paid for extra semesters. I failed some classes more than once because the guidelines were too vague "pick an extract, any extract, and analyse it" okay... In the end, most of my friends disappeared and I spent the summer trapped in a library trying to write my thesis and slowly loosing my mind. I'd have loved to stay in academia, but I knew I couldn't do this any longer. I would rather work in a field where the deadlines and motivation are real people and not tied to a screen.
The conflicting viewpoints of "This change will make work better for most students even if some will take advantage of it." Vs "I'd rather 100 students have panic attacks and fail their class than have one student get away with cheating"
One year at college, I submitted every single one of my assignments 1 day late. My professors learned that even though I was submitting late, I was submitting significantly higher quality work than when it was “on time”. Thanks to those professors, I know my brain is just a little slower, not stupid. I’m willing to put in the time, I just need that time. I owe them big time.
Now I have a job, and yeah I take long, but I just stay late. My boss trusts that I’ll get it done and it’ll be quality work. I’m fine with that.
It didn’t teach me that “I don’t need to submit things on time”. It taught me to put in the time necessary. I think if I had gotten 0’s for all of those assignments (well first of all, I wouldn’t have my current job because I would’ve failed), but second, I probably would just, not put in the time. I would figure there was no point.
Hearing this message gives me so much hope and I want education systems to address this kind of policy and encourage implementing it, because I know it'll help out so many people with finishing their studies. I didn't have paperwork for my issues coming into college because I was a victim of a broken medical system, and living with chronic illnesses meant that I would have continuous flare-ups every single year and be unable to turn in heaps of assignments on time. I did eventually get these diagnoses, thankfully, but I had to fight to get extensions up until the end of my undergrad, and still wasn't allowed extra time for some assignments because of how that department was structures. So my grades were pretty shit and I had to do a lot of summer repeats to make up for it, which just spread the stress and academic work over the entire year. Once I got to my masters, I had the proper paperwork but I also had lecturers who were much more understanding and flexible with deadlines. I had more flare-ups, and I still always gave reasons for needing extensions (because I had been scared into this pattern of reliving my trauma in hopes of convincing less-understanding professors), but my lecturers gave me that space to turn in assignments late. Sometimes I only needed a week or two, and sometimes I needed several months. But because I wasn't penalised for it, I ended up graduating with the equivalent of an A overall. The only reason I was able to finish the masters was because my professors accepted my disability accommodations and removed late work penalties for me. If I didn't have that, I would have had to drop out and lose my student visa - which was not a viable option for me. Anyways, I appreciate this kind of message being shared and I hope more people adopt this kind of framework in education
My grandma passed away in the middle of the semester. I failed a class for the first time in my life. I talked to the disability office and they recommend I report the class because the teacher wouldn't respond to my multiple emails (class was online). So now I have to do that. My other teachers were much more compassionate and understanding and I got an A and B in those classes. It sucks having to report a class but I asked for help multiple times and was stuck fixing assignments my myself.
The statement about the real world reality about deadlines not being as strict is resoundingly true. I work as a manufacturing lead and I have to do maintenance, scheduling, SOP development, production runs, machine setups, the whole 9 yards. Most people are task saturated to a way that most people reasonably understand that some projects take longer than the projected deadline.
I love studying and still had some awful experiences with mental health and deadlines. Hearing you got me hopeful and tear eyed. Thank you
thank you so much for this approach and your reasoning. compassion really is key -- so many people in "adult life" today have gone through the being-beat-into-submission approach and perpetuate this cycle of "i had it hard so i see no reason to give you any grace". the world is a better and happier place when we have grace to give to each other, because ultimately, most humans _want_ to be helpful and productive members of society. they're not abusing the option to "slack off" -- they just need extra time or resources to get through difficulties that are currently preventing them from reaching their full potential.
When I started work I realised all deadlines were lenient, there's always a few days to 1-week buffer. Some things need to be done quickly but for larger projects with a lot of moving parts, there's always something that can go wrong which takes extra time to complete. All projects go over budget no matter how on top a company is.
When I was in uni I had a lecturer who didn't care about the deadline he set, he was like "As long as you submit before we finish marking I will not penalise you", so I always submitted the assignment 2-4 days late at the start of the next week. Other assignments for other units were usually due at Friday midnight and I had to grind to get those, having to worry about the deadline of 1 less unit was a HUGE relief, and I took the weekend to do quality work and something I was proud of and I generally got really good grades for those assignments. I also got more accurate feedback regarding my capabilities that I could internalise better, every other unit, any feedback I got I chalked it up to "I could have done better if I had time" and didn't have a 2nd look at it.
I never went to college, but I did go to, essentially, a trade school. Deadlines have always absolutely wrecked me. I am consistently inconsistent and I have recently realized how much of that comes from the fact that my parents either coddled me way too much OR ignored my completely. There was rarely a good balance. Either it was strict and there was yelling or nobody gave a sh!t. I would have LOVED you as a teacher, I am CERTAIN of it.