Last Fall, I had two students who never showed up for class or manifested their existence in any other way. I emailed, tried to make contact, and involved their advisors but the students didn’t respond.
In November, both students finally got in touch. One of them claimed that some terrible hardship had prevented him from accessing the internet for 2,5 months. “Can I please do some of the missed assignments, so that I can get a good grade in this course?” he asked. With 3 weeks left in a 16-week course, this Johnny-come-lately thought he could come in with zero knowledge and ace the course. He thought he had found a great hack. Why make the effort and come to class 3 times a week when you can show up at the very end and get a great result?
The other missing student wasn’t asking to catch up. He wanted his money back and his GPA not to be affected. Having missed the deadline to drop the course without penalty, he wanted me to rewrite history and free him from the consequences of his actions.
It will come as no surprise to anybody that neither student got what he wanted. There are no shortcuts and there is no erasing history. You can’t show up late in the game and solve everything with “a deal”, or in 24 hours, or in two weeks. That’s neither intelligent nor serious.
You also can’t shed your responsibilities because you have changed your mind or don’t feel like honoring them anymore. In the neoliberal worldview, time has no continuity. It is a collection of discrete segments that can be swapped out and rearranged in any order. Incidentally, neoliberalism feels the same way about body parts. Time is a continuity, though. What you did yesterday is what you are today. Constant pivoting is an impossibility.
There are no magic pills or easy hacks. The only results come from patient, daily grinding. And even that will not be effective if it’s divorced from reality, history, and objectivity.
Clarissa's Blog 
Fifty years after completing my formal education, I still have that nightmare where I’m signed up for a course but I haven’t been in class all semester — often I don’t even know what time the class begins, or what room it’s in — and now the end is nearing and I’m in a panic because I haven’t done any of the work. It’s sort of amusing that, even in a dream where you can do anything that occurs to you, I never thought of employing the tactics your students used.
LikeLike
I have the same nightmares often. I wake up in terror of never having passed high school history and that now all my degrees will be revoked as a result.
What’s really weird is that I never struggled with history. Physics was the bane of my existence in high school. But in dreams it’s always history.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A few times I’ve even been sent back to elementary school because there’s some course that I somehow failed to pass — weird, since I was a straight-A student in elementary school.
LikeLike
Do you ever have an equivalent “professor nightmare”? For me, it’s dreams when I show up to class completely unprepared except I am the professor and I am standing in front of the class with no idea what I should talk about. Another favorite is showing up to an exam finding out that you did not bring enough printed exams for all your students and then you run around the department trying to get them printed…
LikeLike
It’s not managing to bring the syllabi on the first day of class. Usually starts in early August and continues until the semester begins and I manage to bring the syllabi. 20 years of this. This is the cost of the profession.
LikeLike
“ever have an equivalent “professor nightmare”?”
Weirdly I’ve never had those. Even as a student. I have had dreams where I realize I’m kind almost naked in public (though no one else seems to notice or have an issue with it…) but school wasn’t the only or main location…
My anxiety dreams are more about travel… missing connections or getting on the wrong train/plane, wallet or suitcase missing…
I also have frustration dreams where I find a great (usually used) book store though of course I can’t actually read anything in the dream, another version is a record store….
LikeLike
Being late for a plane because I get distracted by trivial stuff and can’t get myself together is another sentimental favorite. In real life, I pack days ahead and arrive many hours in advance at the airport.
LikeLike
I get the music version: I show up late to a concert, somebody hands me a complicated instrument I’ve never seen before, and I’m up for a solo…
LikeLike