I thought of this post because my 8th grade brother is sick with a bad stomach flu and has been staying home from school. At first I was going to post something about how sickness has caused him to act crankier than usual and have a negative outlook on life, but a lot of people have already posted about perspective and attitude.
Instead, I thought, Dang, I hope I don't catch what he's got. I can't afford that.
Because at this point, we cannot afford to lose a day. Our schedule is so fast and densely-packed that getting thrown off a day is basically the end of it all (well for me it would be).
I thought of my post title by thinking of the tenacious but foolish souls that come to school when ill simply in order to not get behind. I'm sure we've all contemplated it. Senior year for IB students is too late for us to celebrate a sick day as a day off. Some of us will inevitably come to school with some contagious virus and not only have a miserable day trying to fight it off but also we will promote the spread of disease. Have you ever considered that staying home when sick was not just for your own good?
That's why I say that IB promotes disease (tongue in cheek of course). Do you think that advanced curricula are so intense that they cannot be missed by even a day?
I can certainly speak to this - tomorrow I'll be missing the entire school day (not because of sickness, but all the same), and I'm already stressing about what I'll have to make up. Speaking to teachers, I've already learned that I'll have to stay an hour after school for Spanish, write a letter to Darda because of missing a seminar discussion, finish my Paper 1, and (perhaps saddest of all) miss my single day a week I get to play flute with the orchestra. I have a (non-IB, relatively-easy-class-taking) friend who missed school today, and she'll hardly have any makeup work. IB certainly is a strong motivator to attend as many school days as possible, and I see your logic how it could "promote" the spread of diseases! Very clever.
ReplyDeleteWell I definitely agree with you that missing class is a really bad idea. I guess a remedy for the proposed problem would be to more frequent three day weekends (less dense breaks to balance it out of course), combined with less rigid due dates. In real life if you're sick you are already suffering, why would in the falsified environment that is school would the penalty be more steep?
ReplyDeleteI am very nervous about getting sick this year- bring on the flu shot! Missing even one day of school would get one quite behind. We move so incredibly quickly that it is so hard to catch up. I have ortho appointments about once a month, so I have to miss some class. I usually schedule the appointments for during choir (which makes me sad to miss) or spanish (which I probably shouldn't miss but am willing to because of how boring I find the class). I would never dream of missing history or tok by choice. This is why I contemplated not going on the Wilson field trip. Oh IB, you make me crazy.
ReplyDelete