Tardiness

The Problem With Being Tardy

The problem is when people repeatedly come in late. This is problem for several reasons.

First of all, it’s hard on the teacher. Whenever one person comes in late, Dr. Cogburn has to stop what she’s doing to make changes in her attendance records. When people keep drifting into class every few minutes it keeps disrupting her teaching, and this makes it hard for Dr. Cogburn to do her job. It breaks her train of thought so she has to stop, to remember what she was talking about, or it takes away from working with other students. This is disrespectful to her and to her work. Plus, she is getting old and doesn’t always remember things like she did in the past.
Second of all, it is hard on the rest of the class. Whenever people come in late, it disrupts the teacher’s teaching or distracts students from whatever they were doing. It is distracting when someone walks in late, cuts through the middle of the room, sits down and takes things out of his or her book bag. It’s more distracting when this person starts talking with his or her neighbors about why s/he was late and what s/he missed. It’s not so bad when one person does this, but it’s a big problem when several people do this on a regular basis. It causes lots of little conversations to start up that make us lose our focus on the schoolwork. It creates an atmosphere that says what we’re doing isn’t important, and that it’s ok to drift in any time and start chatting with our friends while we’re engaged in schoolwork. That perception is not correct, and is not how this class will be most successful for me. We are all here to learn something that might be really useful for my future, and it is disrespectful to the people who come to class on time and take their education seriously when I drift in late.

Last of all it’s hard on me and my learning. We start class on time and we do a lot of important things at the beginning of the period – announcements, collecting assignments, instructions for the day’s work. And when I miss that often enough, it can make a difference in getting my work done, which can make a difference in my grade in class, which can make a difference in my GPA, which can make a difference in whether or not I graduate or whether or not I get into the college of my choice. It is ultimately disrespectful to myself; it says I don’t care about my education or my learning.

The final choice is mine. Dr. Cogburn is going to assign this paper every time I break the tardy policy, and detention if I have to write this more than once, so it is in my best interest to do whatever it takes to get to class on time from now on. If I choose to continue to be tardy, I will copy this over again and will likely be attending a Tardy Party after school with Dr. Cogburn, where she will have some tasks to be done in the room, or, perhaps she and I will just study together, in her classroom, after school.