OK when there are no African students in my class let me tell you how it works. I’m not allowed to grade for attendance but I do count how many students are in the classroom at the bell. So if I have 30 people on my list of students, I’ll see, on average, 27 people in the classroom at the start of class.
Typically, within about one minute from the start of class I’ll have one additional student walk in. It’s likely that within the next five minutes that a second late student walks in. That third student never makes it to class.
It’s very rare for a student to come into my class 30 minutes late. And if they are going to be that late they will send me a text message explaining why.
When I teach a class with 30 African students, there might be 15 to 20 there at the bell. Two or three will walk in in the first couple minutes. Within about 15 minutes I’ll see about five more walk in. And then by the 30 minute mark five more will stroll in.
But it’s not just that they’re coming in continuously. Often they come walking down the hall talking very loudly and then when they get into the room they don’t seem to express any shame or guilt at being so late. I am supposed to accept their lateness without complaint. That’s the real indicator that there’s a moral difference in how they value time. Because I know that cultures value time differently I shouldn’t take it personally and I try not to.
Now are you going to tell me that because I can’t post the actual attendance spreadsheet from four years ago, that my memory of everything else is also biased.
OK when there are no African students in my class let me tell you how it works. I’m not allowed to grade for attendance but I do count how many students are in the classroom at the bell. So if I have 30 people on my list of students, I’ll see, on average, 27 people in the classroom at the start of class.
Typically, within about one minute from the start of class I’ll have one additional student walk in. It’s likely that within the next five minutes that a second late student walks in. That third student never makes it to class.
It’s very rare for a student to come into my class 30 minutes late. And if they are going to be that late they will send me a text message explaining why.
When I teach a class with 30 African students, there might be 15 to 20 there at the bell. Two or three will walk in in the first couple minutes. Within about 15 minutes I’ll see about five more walk in. And then by the 30 minute mark five more will stroll in.
But it’s not just that they’re coming in continuously. Often they come walking down the hall talking very loudly and then when they get into the room they don’t seem to express any shame or guilt at being so late. I am supposed to accept their lateness without complaint. That’s the real indicator that there’s a moral difference in how they value time. Because I know that cultures value time differently I shouldn’t take it personally and I try not to.
Now are you going to tell me that because I can’t post the actual attendance spreadsheet from four years ago, that my memory of everything else is also biased.
Unless you logged the data in a spreadsheet and studied it. That's the true way to know.
Ok white boy…