I, like all of you, have students in my office and in the cafeteria or Food Court crying figuratively or literally about a class they are failing or that their grade point may not be high enough to keep their scholarship.
The first question I ask is, "Do you go to class all the time?". Often the answer starts out, "Well....". My friend, Bruce McGowan of Texas College Ministry, says any answer that starts with well is not going to be a positive answer. That particularly applies to oral references.
But, in this case, the "Well" is usually followed by something like, "I don't go all the time.". This is a college euphemism for, "I don't go much at all.".
Dr. Joy Trauth is an Instructor in Biological Sciences at Arkansas State University. She shares these statistics from two classes she taught with 309 students who started out in the classes.
-60 students dropped the class before the end of the semester. The average number of absences for each student at the time he or she dropped was nine (9) for a class that met 3 times a week for fifteen weeks.
-Students who made A's (12.4%) and B's (20.5%) had an average of 2.4 absences.
-Students who earned a D (22.5%) or F (19.8%)had an average of 8.3 absences.
-Of those students that earned an A or B 14 had perfect attendance.
-Only 4 students who had a D or F had perfect attendance.
The past couple of weeks I have visited with some students in responsibility roles in our ministry about their "absences" at important leadership events. One of our tasks as College Ministers is to teach, ask for and hold students accountable to being present where they have committed to be. A lot of life is affected by whether or not we show up. You fail your students when you don't teach about "The Discipleship Characteristic of showing up".
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