The note on now-yellowing paper, printed with a dot-matrix printer, lies in front of me. It reads:
Dear Professor,
This may sound like a bad excuse, and it may be one, for all I know, but I wanted to explain why my paper is so late. First of all, I spoke to you about turning the paper in at the class after it was actually due. I had to play in a recital and I just could not get everything organized the way I should have.
In music school, performing understandably takes precedence over academics in most music students’ lives.
Secondly, when I did finish the paper three days later, I did not have enough paper to print the paper on. After that things just got bad. When I did have paper, I got to the middle of the tenth page and the ribbon ran out.
Yes, Virginia, computer printers used to have ribbons.
I couldn’t just run out and get more because I didn’t have enough money to get it at the time. My suitemate (whose word processor I was using) promised that she would get more ribbon that week. It didn’t happen. I have had ten pages of a paper sitting in my room for three weeks and just now have gotten to print the rest of the pages.
I did try to retype the paper [she meant from the computer screen using a real typewriter, for you young ‘uns.], but the disk I was using is no longer in existence. I left it in the class piano room and it disappeared (along with my theory assignments).
I forgot about the paper—it had been so long since I worked on it, until I heard my suitemate printing a paper in her room. She had forgotten to tell me that she had purchased more ribbon (I couldn’t remind her because I had forgotten about the paper—blocked it out of my mind, I guess). Well, I that is the whole story—every crazy detail of it—I hope. Here is my paper. I hope you will accept it this late—if not, well, I will have to suffer the consequences of my actions (only proper, no?).
Thank you, regardless of your decision.
Student’s signature
But that wasn’t the whole story, as she added another paragraph in pen:
The situation actually got worse. I had the paper on my desk on Friday night, and my friend’s boyfriend spilled a drink on it. I didn’t find out about it until this morning, when it was already too late. So, here it is, finally. I hope you will accept it, or at least give me partial credit or something along that line.
I cannot remember my response, but she was a sincere person, so I probably granted credit, though not a sterling grade. But the note itself was sterling. I have kept it more than thirty years. Every once in a while, I find it, reread it, smile, and fold it back up.
Throughout my academic career, students in surveys labeled me as solidly fair and sympathetic. I took flack for this from certain colleagues. Being tough in teaching is regarded as admirable, particularly by the administration.
To me, though, it mattered more to be tough in terms of the rigor of content. I wanted students to grapple with the toughest materials in their study of historical culture, even if the process became messy.
In the meantime, I would watch these students living exhaustingly stressful lives, practicing, rehearsing, teaching, studying, working jobs outside of music, and occasionally pursing a personal life. They were the cream of the crop—music majors generally are. But they were not machines. And so many aspects of their lives allowed no flexibility, from recital deadlines to scarily intractable professors. Consciously or subconsciously, I made a decision early on to work with them in any way I could.
In hindsight, I probably went too far, but overall it was the right approach. Because, really and truly, sometimes the dog does eat one’s homework. One grabs one’s oboe from the practice room, but not always the papers off to the side. Printer ink was horribly expensive then, just as it is today. Suitemates promise and do not deliver. Guests spill drinks. (Hey, I don’t need guests: I spill my own drinks.)
And while I cannot imagine blocking out a due date for even three hours, much less three weeks, perhaps at age eighteen I did. Those of you who have read Why Freshmen Fail and How to Avoid It recall how I undid myself academically as a freshman in a variety of ways.
But what matters to me now is the preciousness of this note. Absolutely sincere, scattered, worried, and hopeful. That’s how most freshmen and sophomores are. Graduate students leave that stage behind: their approach becomes professional and disasters are dealt with not in petitioning notes, but by finding alternative solutions.
But at eighteen? It really is hit and miss for some kids, even when they are trying their hardest. Especially when trying to scale the mountainous path of the arts, where nothing is guaranteed, where practicing away a technical problem can take 30 minutes, 30 hours or, quite frankly, 30 years.
As this academic year begins in full, launch those high standards. Push full steam ahead. But it’s not a bad idea to keep a bit of sympathy tucked away for students who struggle with organization and logistics. Yes, sometimes they are wantonly irresponsible or maddeningly unmotivated. But sometimes they are working at the top of their game or complicating their path by minor bumblings. Yes, they must learn to fix these things. But it’s not always an immediate fix.
Or maybe I’m just feeling sentimental today, as I hold the tattered page of this student’s confession in my hand. She went on to do very well, by the way. A beloved high school music director today, she probably has her own collection of such notes.
And yet, a blush would come over her face if she saw this note again. I’m glad I still have it. For me, it is precious.
