In my last article, I discussed the teachers who held me late after class and how it frustrated me. This was and still is a problem I am having with teachers. Now, however, I'm having another one --teachers who come late to class.
I honestly don't mind if a teacher is late once in a while. It happens to all of us. Even if a teacher is consistently a few minutes late, I don't care that much. We still get the most (or as much as we can) from our class time. And, for the most part, the teachers already have a plan and are ready to start in a few mere minutes. It's not that bad of a wait.
However, to the one teacher who shows up five minutes late to every class because of a smoke break, please either make the break shorter or do it after our class, because I honestly struggle to focus on the class when I'm choking on the fumes of your cigarettes drifting from your clothes.
Onto the main issue though. At Elmira College, there is a 15-minute wait period. After this wait period, if the teacher has not shown up, the students may leave.
Why does this matter? Because there is a teacher out there who is consistently showing up to class at exactly 14 minutes late, unprepared for class, and taking all the time in the world to get class started. If this happens once, OK, yeah, I'm a little upset but whatever, probably just a really bad day. This happens again the very next class despite all of us knowing that the teacher was in their office, but waved us away with a "I'll be there in a moment." Then, oh yes, there's a then, it happens for a third time in a row.
This is incredibly frustrating. Because now I feel as though I'm paying all this money to go to college and taking all these classes, and you just don't care. Why should you worry about being on time for your own class? As long as you're there at exactly 14 minutes we aren't allowed to leave. We have to wait for you to put together everything and listen to your stories and wait for you. That's not fair. You are getting paid to teach us for an hour and a half two mornings a week, not to come in exactly one minute before we can leave, waste another 20 minutes putting everything together, and expect that to be fine.
I understand mornings are hard. I am not a morning person either, but I make it not just on time but ten minutes early to my 8 and 8:15 classes. You can do it, too. I don't mean to be rude, but I find that this entire thing feels deliberate, and if you have decided to change the class starting time to 8:29, please inform me of such so that I don't have to wait out in the hallway for 14 minutes (technically more like 20-24 since I usually get there early) because the classroom door is locked and only you have the key.
In conclusion, if students are expected to be on time, I think teachers should be, too. Or we need to change the rule to 10 minutes at most for a wait period so we can actually get class moving.
Thanks for reading. May you reach all your classes on time and your teachers be on time too.
