How I Frakked Up About Hard Deadlines

Google "no late work" and the image results are pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

I cringe at most of these. They are cruel, they are arbitrary. They also seem really unnecessary.

But today I realized (too late) that hard deadlines no matter what form, are exactly the same. 

First, some background: This semester all my classes did grade conferences. All my classes had 75% of their grade as class activities. Come, participate and you're guaranteed a passing "C." These activities were formative, graded on completion rather than mastery of skills. 25% of their grade were summative assignments, major writing assignments. They could revise for a higher grade, and the last month of the semester I allowed them to make up any missing class activities by attending campus events and doing a short write up. There was a hard deadline for making up missing work or submitting revised work- two weeks before the end of the semester.

I can tell you that my logic for this was based on grading contracts- come and do your best and you'll pass, that allowing to make up and revise work helps them, that a hard deadline would enable them to clear the decks so to speak and focus on their writing portfolio.

But I realized a couple of big things, and I realized them in staggering order.

First, I realized that my no attendance, no penalty for late work policies, which I have to enable students to be adults and prioritize what they needed, enabled them to do just that, especially at the end of the semester, so they did. Like John Warner I initially wondered, "why don't you want to come to MY class..."

Then I realized that I was taking this personally, that my class was functioning exactly the way it was supposed to. 

Second, I realized as students attended campus events to make up zeroes for missed class assignments that I had a flaw in the system and an inspiration. A lot of students commented that they liked that this made them go to events, which they enjoyed, but would not normally have gone to. So I made a profile of a campus resource a major writing assignment for composition. The flaw was that I intended the class activities to act as a grading contract, encouraging them to come to class. But then I paradoxically gave zeroes for missed days, which seemed to counter my no attendance policy/no penalty approach, and then countered myself AGAIN by not letting students make these up, because they were "in class" activities, and then, because apparently I'm rubbish, countered myself AGAIN by letting them make them up with campus activity write ups at the end of the semester.

I'm exhausted just writing that. I can't imagine what my students felt, although not a single one mentioned this in their cover letters.

Also, this was all in my syllabus, so I'm "covered" I guess, but I'm confessing now, that was a bunch of BS. I got hung up on letter of the law and lost the forest for the trees (and apparently mixed my metaphors).

IF I wanted students to come to class because it was interesting, and they learned things BUT ALSO be able to prioritize what they needed to then, I could not grade in any way class activities they had to be present for. So, next semester upper level classes grade conference at midterms and finals and composition classes only have three major writing assignments and their writing portfolio, each counting 25%. I'm still going to do the class activities. I'll still ask them to turn things in so I can see where they are. I'm just not going to grade them. I'm going to use them, they just won't go into the gradebook. Here is where I feel the need to point out that well-intentioned, up on the research, teachers can still screw up royally because we're countering decades of how we taught and were taught. It's not an excuse. But I hope it conveys how different a lot of things would be if we taught grading and assessment in a very different way from the beginning.

The hard deadlines though is where I really frakked up, and I'll tell you why- if a student did the work why would I not grade it?

I had a few of students who came in today, for most their final exam period for my class, and they ran the spectrum (came to class, were passing, haven't seen in weeks, failing a lot, could not remember their name it'd been so long since I'd seen them, etc.), who with a sheaf of papers in hand asked if I would take their work.

And I said no. 

I explained that there had been a hard deadline to turn in missing or revised work, that the deadline as 25 November, that this was announced repeatedly in class and on Blackboard, and that this deadline was passed.

And suddenly I'm the principal in Dangerous Minds who turns the kid away because he didn't knock. And I feel like a piece of shit.

I can rationalize that this was the policy, it was announced, it was emphasized, it would not be fair to bend rules for today's students when so many others met deadline. I can rationalize that if I haven't seen them since October their work probably would not have been passing, that there's a bit of truth to seat time. I can tell you my logic behind this decision- that it would enable me time to grade all the make up work so going into the last day of class they'd have their accurate grade, that it would enable them to focus on finals.

But, and let me say this very clearly, this was wrong. *I* was wrong.


I did grade conferences, there is no work to grade. I do not have a pile of 150 essays to get through. I have no rubrics to circle. I've been sitting in my office looking at Baby Not-Yoda gifs and writing blog posts. Part of the rationale, that I know I'm not alone in, is the "but what if no one did any work on time and everyone waited until the last minute?"

First, this will never happen. They're juggling lots of classes and other responsibilities, they won't do this to themselves.
Second, if it did, in some bizarro world, then there would just be a really long line down the hallway as folks waited to grade conference.
That's it, that's the nightmare scenario.  A queue.

And the fear of that, that inconsequential thing, caused me to be a jerk.

It would have cost me nothing to sit down with those three students today, grade conference with them, talk to them. While in each case it would probably not have been enough to raise a 30 or 40 to a passing 75, they would have been heard. They would have been listened to. Maybe that moment would be enough to get them to reflect, come back, do better. I was petty and there is no good reason for it. Another student asked to make up a class activity and I said no for the same reason. This was unkind.

No student disappears from a class for no reason. The first few weeks I always email checking in, but honestly, if they don't answer, three weeks of emails is usually when I stop. And now I feel like shit because who gives up on a student?

Any rationalization is the kind of gate-keeping bullshit ego trip I hate, and could have sworn I didn't suffer from. It's ego to lecture them about deadlines. They know. It's ego to say no instead of asking, how are you, what's going on? It's ego to think I'm in the right and they're not. It is ego to somehow think I'm teaching them a lesson about responsibility, or coming to class, or reading the syllabus. To take it personally that they didn't come to my class, touch base with me, talk to me, let me know what was going on.

I was that dick professor.

So next semester I've taken my hard deadlines away. 
Instead my composition syllabus says:

When you turn in your major writing assignments you’ll meet with me to discuss it.  I will ask you what grade you think you deserve and why based on what we, as a class, determined the assignment should include.

• For these grade conferences you should have a copy (hard or electronic) of your assignment and be prepared to answer that question, using support/evidence from your assignment
• I suggest you take notes on the feedback you receive, next steps, ways to improve

• There is no penalty for late work, and you can grade conference any missing work until the final exam day and time
• Once the schedule grade conference day for each major writing assignment has passed I put in Fs for missing work so your grade is always up to date and accurate, so you can make your own academic choices and prioritize work
• Deadline to grade conference any missing or revised work is the scheduled final exam time
• You must earn a “C” (75%) in Composition to receive

But my intent does not negate the impact on those students.

So I can only realize what a colossal frak up this all was, reflect, admit I was wrong, and design a better way for next time.

I think it's important to be public and open about these things.

I also think we really, REALLY need to start teaching teachers a different and better way.