How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
As a freshman at NYU, Damon Beres' words ring true to my ears ("Stop taking roll, start watching participation," Feb. 4), emitting the kind of enthusiasm normally reserved for free lunches or a good superhero film. But upon further inspection and thought, it now occurs to me that his words ring like a frozen steak being flung across a walrus' back.
The problem with Beres' argument that students should not be required to attend class is that it is a mutated version of the same liberalized, progressive view that has led this nation to spoil its children and throw those old virtues of patience and respect out the window. Students should be required to attend class because their parents were required to.
Students should be required to attend class because they are here to get a education, not to simply get the grade. Students should be required to attend class because, unlike other individuals in our society, they have been fortunate enough to have the chance to avoid taking part in a full-time job right out of high school.
NYU students are paying an exorbitant amount of money to take part in this institution, and they are not paying to get a good grade at the end of the day or to coast through and enjoy the ride. This university's job is to guarantee that its graduates are better citizens with a wide expanse of knowledge housed in their brains.
Paying NYU $40,000 a year is not so the school can roll out a red carpet and kiss one's feet. It is a fee that is used to treat students like students, and thus, get them to do things they may not normally desire ("Writing the Essay," anyone?).
If an NYU student can't manage to attend a specific class for less than three hours a week, can't get to bed early enough to avoid the early morning blues or can't manage to get to a doctor's office to treat his flu, then he has no place being in that class. A better schedule should be chosen the coming semester or the student shouldn't be in the school at all.
Teachers have every right to expect that their students attend each class, and they have every right to expect the student to be prepared physically, mentally and emotionally to handle the ungodly pain and torture of sitting for a little while.
Bosses expect it, our parents managed to deal with it and responsible students who truly "care about their education" should be able to do it as well. If we're adults, as Beres contends, we must ask: Do adults complain about attending boring office meetings or going to the grocery store? Or do they do the time to complete the task at hand?
Beres' idea to make in-class participation a requirement and forgo the normal attendance portion of the grade is wrongheaded. Students who are shy would be handicapped, as would sick students, weak English speakers and students forced to sit in the nosebleed seats of a lecture hall.
Furthermore, Beres' idea - that the teacher trust that the student has the mind to know when missing class is a necessity - is a policy already practiced by the university: It's called the three strike policy. If a student misses more than three classes for whatever reason, that student's schedule is poorly oriented or the student is too lazy to make it to class. (I am no saint on this issue, might I add, though my own guilt doesn't make it any less true.)
If students can't manage their time, can't learn to get to a doctor when necessary, or simply find the lecture boring and have no desire to attend, there are a host of good jobs out there that don't require a degree. If mom and dad could do it, so can we.
Lucas Pattan is a contributing columnist. E-mail him at opinion@nyunews.com.
