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2%, INNOVATION ABSTRACTS ‘88

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2G CAN Published by the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development
With support from the W. K. Keliogg Foundation and Sid W/. Richardson Foundation

 

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WHAT I DID WHEN .. . EXCUSING THE INEXCUSABLE

We hate excuses, both giving and receiving them. They drain us because we know they are often more
deftly delivered with lies—from innocuous exaggerations to wholesale manufacture of fake and gravely ill
relatives—and because both creating and enduring excuses are thankless jobs. I seldom ask for excuses (not for
"real" ones, at least) and usually would rather not hear them. Still, students insist on explaining; and,
strangely, it is always Something Valid that has obstructed a Sincere Student's Education. Not once have I
heard a ruthlessly true explanation: "Last Wednesday when it was time to leave for class, | was eating potato
chips and watching General Hospital; and I thought, ‘Composition is a crock, anyway.’" I do hear the word
hospital quite often, though; elementary ESL students rely on it and doctor in the first ten seconds of their
excuses.

Admittedly, listening to excuses is a minor pain; but because they are irksome, I immediately loved the
perverse logic of the excuse assignment. Gary Short, a colleague at Modesto Junior College, assigned, as an
essay topic, an entirely false written excuse for a missed class; he asked for Russian ballerinas, the CIA, bank
robberies—anything but flat tires and sick uncles. Intrigued, I told my basic writing class that henceforth an
"excused absence" would count as half an absence and that to get an absence "excused" a student would have
to stand in front of the class and read a two-page lie, the more outrageous the better.

About a week later I had forgotten about giving the assignment when a woman raised her hand and asked
to read her excuse. She had been struggling with her umbrella in a recent rainstorm, she said, when she was
wafted to Hawaii where she landed in a mixed drink. Regularly, before I had unpacked my satchel, someone
would say "Joe has an excuse" or "Let’s hear Dawn’s excuse." In four classes now I have been greeted by basic
writing students eager to read and to hear excuses like these:

. . . The entire SWAT team had been called in, and the convict was showing no signs of
breaking down. I began to push my way through the crowd. I knocked the police sergeant
down and walked right up to the criminal. I began to remind him of his responsibility to his
parents and to his pet cockroach, and that he should be a law-abiding citizen. My talk began to
get through to him, especially the part about the cockroach, and he began to cry... . Lupe
Lopez

.. . We live in Loomis on a few acres, which means we still have well water. So I was in
the shower whistling as I was lathering all over. Then before I rinsed, there was a loud noise
and the water stopped. Panic set in... . My father went outside to check the circuit breakers
and the pump. He found the pump very hot and the circuit breaker on. | was starting to get
sticky . . . . Our closest neighbors live down the road a couple hundred yards, so I got my
thongs and wrapped a towel around me... . John Barr

. . . Hours later I was standing down at the bottom of a hugh pink marshmallow mountain.
We started climbing but we kept sinking. Finally we reached the top and saw a city full of
marshmallow people .... We came to a campfire... . Dede Mayfield
But these excuses do much more than spur lively writing and exuberant sharing; they make the classroom
atmosphere healthier. When a student stands to read a paper, I take a seat in the class, and we laugh together
and make ritual mockery of the adversarial why-didn’t-you-do-your-homework? syndrome. The satire, at times,
gets thick:
. . . While I was getting out of the car, a mob of reporters wanted to talk to me. I told
them that I had to go because I didn’t want to miss my English class, but they wouldn’t take no
for an answer... . I knew I had missed class and thought to myself, "my teacher must be
crying by now... ." Isabel Maciel

 

@ Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712