We’ve all been there. I know I have, at least. I wake up, my nostrils crusty with snot, plugged up by God knows what. My throat is sore, even swallowing soup is a chore.
I am covered in blankets, basically wearing a three-piece suit underneath there, yet I feel like Mr. Freeze. I flick around on the tube, deciding whether to watch Dora or a fourth consecutive SportsCenter.
I am sick, and it sucks. But none of this is actually happening; I am actually on my way to fourth period, and I have two tests and a quiz today. If I miss today, I’ll just kill myself with work later, and I’ll probably still be sick then too.
School is a giant cesspool of swine, strep and the sniffles. Students can’t help get sick every once in awhile. And in the beginning of the year, teachers realized this. They said that if you’re a sick student, you should stay at home. No questions asked.
But this statement is something of a contradiction. In fact, it’s a major one. Most students almost never miss school. It’s just too difficult to make up the work. It’s not worth it. It screws up the rest of the school week.
And the main reason for this? The teachers can only do so much to get kids caught up on what they missed, let alone tests and other various things a student misses in one school day. The pressure of having to make up even one day is devastating, it leads to students’ heads exploding, and them scrambling for their head on the ground, looking for brain chunks (metaphorically speaking).
Students simply cannot function when they are sick. It also endangers the rest of the population; one sick student in school can eventually cause many others to be sick. People underestimate how easily germs can be transferred, from the highest to the lowest of fives, sharing drinks and eating the rest of a burrito bowl you found on the ground, to coughing as much as Jason Campbell coughs up the ball.
The problem of student absences due to sickness has no clear solution. Students will always get sick, and teachers will always be hard-pressed to teach each day to its full extent. Teachers should, however, realize the pressures students deal with everyday, and be understanding to students who have missed school, by doing things like giving them extra time to learn the material missed.
Students don’t like taking tests three weeks later either, teachers. It’s as awkward as the limp fish handshake. It’s not pretty. Not one bit. But it’s better than the alternative: stressed out, sick students doing poorly, infecting other students. And teachers, it can eventually lead to you. I know that teachers aren’t always at conferences. You guys aren’t robots. You have feelings. Now ease up on students that miss school. Before I unplug you.
