Comment by bumby
1 day ago
You seem to expect the professor to give you a reasonable accommodation for an affliction you didn’t even realize you had. If you want to hold him accountable for his (unfair?) rules, you need to first hold yourself accountable for getting the disease diagnosed.
The world we live in, with the people we live with, require accomodations every single day.
Not locking a door allows the students who were delayed on the road by a car accident, as much as the disabled student who took five minutes longer than expected after falling down some stairs.
Every single person makes mistakes at times. If those are not absorbed by flexibility, then they go on to affect everyone else connected to the punished.
If the professor is delayed due to a tire puncture, should they lose their tenure?
It also allows the people actually in the class a lesson uninterrupted by random people for variety of good/bad reasons.
Most 90% of students is not late on any given day. Should they all be penalized for the actions of a few?
The request is not to transfer the burden onto the 90%, but to design a system where the 10% are able to participate without impeding the 90%.
For example, if students enter from the rear of the room, then delayed students can join without disrupting the on-time students.
If we start the design process with the awareness that some students will be late, then we can design systems which support all students.
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So you're happy to punish 10% of students, for no fault of their own. You'll trade a moment's distraction, for a paid-for day's learning.
That, is a lack of empathy. Especially as for about the last hundred years universities have had a process that allows for the necessary flexibility.
To take this to the extreme... Should we simply fire everyone who is late to work, without reason? If someone else causes a car accident, should we simply revoke the licenses of everyone involved, regardless?
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Make them sit at the back of the class?
>If the professor is delayed due to a tire puncture, should they lose their tenure?
This seems like a false equivalency. The student isn’t getting dropped from their degree program, they’re missing a class. If a professor is late, especially habitually late, I may not advocate for them losing tenure, but I’d certainly expect it to have a smaller impact like being brought up in a performance review.
They're missing a class, yes.
A class that they have paid to access.
A class that the professor would not be teaching, if they did not believe it essential to the degree program.
They are being denied access to something both important, and already paid for.
> You seem to expect the professor to give you a reasonable accommodation for an affliction you didn’t even realize you had.
No. How could he? Instead, I'm pointing out the value of empathy, tolerance and flexibility.
I’m all for empathy, tolerance, and flexibility (to a reasonable degree). I also don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a professor to act on an assumption of illness when the person actually experiencing the symptoms does not hold that assumption. Your perspective makes it seem like the prof is privy to information about your health that you don’t have.
I'd go a step further.. The prof was expressing empathy for the students that made the effort to be on time. They made it.
If you know you're late all the time, then make allowances. 8 hours not enough sleep, go to bed earlier. 1 hour not enough time to wake up, set your alarm to give you 2 hours.
This isn't related to knowing you're sick, just knowing you're late often.
It always makes me wonder when I hear "empathy, tolerance, flexibility" pointed at a group of 30 or more, who need to work around one persons inability to do the same.
I had a co-worker who was always late. I told her she was lying when she said she'd be there at 2. She got miffed. I replied. "You're late so often, do you expect you'll be on time. I know you'll try, but do you really believe you're not going to be late." She paused. "If you know you're very likely going to be late and tell me you will be somewhere at time X, then you are lying."
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You are being purposely obtuse.
Illness is only one of the possible issues a student may have that may be impacting them. A little flexibility goes a long way.
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Maybe we should just be a little lenient to everyone, on principle?
What of the ADD student who gets distracted when someone comes in late? What should we tell them. "Suck it up"
What of the daycare that's expecting you to show up and pick up your kids on time. Should we tell the workers to wait, because the guy replacing you at work was late. Then of course we tell the cleaners of the daycare to start their shift 30 mins later because they have to wait for the last kid to leave. Oh and the cleaners will have to stay 30 min extra to clean, so now we tell the people relying on them to wait. Or.. Or we tell the cleaners to work a bit harder so they don't take an extra 30 minutes..
So the 30min you're late messes up the day of not just the person expecting you, but all the people expecting them.
How about on principle anticipate that you're going to be late, and make an effort to arrive early. If you know you're late all the time, start giving yourself more time.
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First, go read the HN guidelines and understand why your post should be reframed.
>how would you even know you had a condition and werent just a lazy ass?
If you are not able to know, how on Earth do you expect the professor to know you aren’t just lazy or unmotivated?
I’m all for giving people grace. But it strikes me as a weird take to expect people to go around assuming people have some grave condition that they don’t even realize to excuse them from all manner of aberrant behavior.
This is completely out of line. Calm down before commenting. Strong disagreement is fine but this style of communication repels discussion.
And here is the notable lack of empathy HN displays on a daily basis.
You don't need to tone police people to get their point. Just read what they are saying instead of rejecting their opinion because you are uncomfortable when someone displays a strong emotion.