Spring Fever

Today was the last day before Spring Break, and it was also the first sunny, reasonably warm day for a while. So attendance was not good, in general, across campus. A lot of instructors give up, and cancel class on the Friday before break, but that seems to me to be feeding the problem. The more people cancel class, the more students feel like they can skip out on the few classes that remain.

I, personally, had a quiz in my Linear Algebra class. Only two people missed, and one is a really good student, who talked to me about it yesterday, and dropped off her homework early. I also had two students leave after the quiz. One had talked to me about it, and the other hadn't. Talk about an insult! Basically, they can't waste another 25 minutes to listen to me. They have places to be. I'd like to write on their quizzes "Screw you, too!" but I'll resist the urge. The one who talked to me about it seemed properly sheepish, and he said he had an appointment in Madison, which might well be true.

In my Modern Algebra class, I not only didn't have a quiz, I told them in advance that I wasn't going to cover new material, just go over questions on the problems that they are still working on. I only had 11 out of 21. Of the 10 missing, I know a few were students who are pretty much on top of everything, and probably felt they could skip the result. A few others talked to me in advance about having to leave town early. I don't like it, but I'll live with it. The two worst students, who need a lot more extra help, skipped. They've made it a semi-regular habit to miss on Friday afternoons, anyway. I wonder why they are the two worst students?

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