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.