My friend who is also teaching a senior seminar for undergrads reports that with 4 weeks to go in the semester, in a class of 7, already 3 grandparents have passed away. 2 grandfathers passed away in the same week.
In my senior seminar of 15, only one grandparent has been lost so far. But we have had also had 1 trip to the emergency room for an infected pierced ear lobe, 2 chronic flus, and 1 person who had to ship to the west coast to take part in military exercises.
3 comments:
I don't care about dying grandfathers anymore. One year when I was a TA I had one section (30 or so students) in which one guy shipped out, one was almost killed in a car accident (he insisted on finishing the class when he got back), and one who died. I taught the next summer and a girl's brother was almost killed when the truck in front of him stopped short and some rocks or something smashed through his windshield. She also insisted on finishing the course, and sat in the back crying every day.
So what I want to tell students (but don't) is that you shouldn't stay in my class/section because chances are that something very bad will happen to you, but even if they don't, I will accept your excuse anyway. I'd just as soon not know.
I meant to write "...even if it doesn't..."
"Grandchild attending college" should be listed as a cause of death for coroners to choose from. Don't even get me started about the Girl Scouts that would have starved had one of my summer students not missed class...for 1/3 of the term.
Oh, and then there was another TA's student who had to miss the first two weeks of classes because she was in Africa on a safari. Problematic doesn't even begin to cover that one. (Said student was obviously unaware that said TA is a historian of Africa.)
Seriously. Coroners should look into college (and schooling in general) as a plausible cause of grandparent death.
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