Sickness and Absences

It’s about that time of year again. Whereas the temperature goes down, the absences go up due to illnesses. Although we can take many precautions to keep ourselves from missing class, it almost always ends up happening anyways. When students are sick, I believe they need to take time for themselves and focus on themselves so they can get better and get back to class.

            I believe it is very important to be in class to learn every single day, and also that making up after an absence is not the same as being in class. But, I also believe that being sick is not your fault and you should not be punished for it. Students have a lot on their mind and that’s not even before the pressure of making class work up due to absences. If a student is gone, I feel like they should have a reasonable amount of time to get their missing work turned in, but not the next day.

            Last year, I was gone in the hospital for a week and when I got back to school, I was forced by some of my teachers with homework assignments that were due in the next couple days. I know it is my responsibility to make up time that I missed, but the stress only added to my sickness and made me miss even more school resulting badly for me in the long run. I feel as though if I were given more time, like I feel all students should get, It would’ve been more beneficial to my health, my attendance, and to my grades.

            Although it is the student’s job to make up all assignments, I feel as though teachers need to be better about putting assignments on homework so that when we are gone, we can still get caught up. I fully understand the need to be in class every day to be able to get the full extent of what was learned that day, but you can’t help it when you are sick. I feel as though if teachers were more considerate towards our health instead of just getting work turned in, it would be a better outcome for all of us.