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Comment by gnfargbl | Hacker News Reader

I have a medical condition (autoimmune hypothyroid, extreme edition) which I wasn't aware of, but was suffering from severely, during my University years. Waking up was extremely difficult for me and as a result I was often late. At the time I couldn't understand why I seemingly had a problem that nobody else did, and presumed I just lacked self control. Nope, I just needed (a lot) of medication.

Your Prof Ramsey would have penalised me for this unknown condition. This isn't behaviour to be celebrated.

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You seem to expect the professor to give you a reasonable accommodation for an affliction you didn’t even realize you had. If you want to hold him accountable for his (unfair?) rules, you need to first hold yourself accountable for getting the disease diagnosed.

> You seem to expect the professor to give you a reasonable accommodation for an affliction you didn’t even realize you had.

No. How could he? Instead, I'm pointing out the value of empathy, tolerance and flexibility.

I’m all for empathy, tolerance, and flexibility (to a reasonable degree). I also don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a professor to act on an assumption of illness when the person actually experiencing the symptoms does not hold that assumption. Your perspective makes it seem like the prof is privy to information about your health that you don’t have.

I'd go a step further.. The prof was expressing empathy for the students that made the effort to be on time. They made it.

If you know you're late all the time, then make allowances. 8 hours not enough sleep, go to bed earlier. 1 hour not enough time to wake up, set your alarm to give you 2 hours.

This isn't related to knowing you're sick, just knowing you're late often.

It always makes me wonder when I hear "empathy, tolerance, flexibility" pointed at a group of 30 or more, who need to work around one persons inability to do the same.

I had a co-worker who was always late. I told her she was lying when she said she'd be there at 2. She got miffed. I replied. "You're late so often, do you expect you'll be on time. I know you'll try, but do you really believe you're not going to be late." She paused. "If you know you're very likely going to be late and tell me you will be somewhere at time X, then you are lying."

It really shows that you know nothing about sleep-related disabilities. I know someone suffering from idiopathic hypersomnia[1]. You can't just "choose" to go to bed earlier to wake up earlier in the morning. Sometimes it might work, most of the time it doesn't.

You think it's the disabled person's responsibility to never put a burden on others when others' expectations puts an unreasonable amount of burdens.

And we're talking about this specific kind of disability, but as someone else said in a sibling comment, it could be anything. Imagine you really have to go to the bathroom for some reason (pregnancy, diarrhea, ...). That can happen to a lot of people. Should all of them be prevented from being accepted into class ?

That's why we speak about "empathy, tolerance, flexibility". Empathy towards the weaker few, not empathy towards the "normal" many.

[1]: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hypersomnia/s...

FWIW I agree but I think it’s worth communicating a devils advocate position.

I don’t think anyone here is disagreeing that those with a disability should be protected. The distinction is that many don’t go so far as to assume someone has a disability when their behavior is maladaptive. In game theory, systems break down when they are too many people abusing the system. Giving everyone a break on all instances just in case they have a disability sets the table for creating an unstable system ripe for abuse.

You point out the specific case of sleep disorders. But the numbers of medical disorders is functionally infinite. If we apply the same rule across the board, we would be creating a world where nobody is held accountable because they might just have some obscure illness they aren’t aware of.

I think there are better approaches that don’t devolve like that. As another congener said, you can create a system where late-comers can quietly come in the back.

You are being purposely obtuse.

Illness is only one of the possible issues a student may have that may be impacting them. A little flexibility goes a long way.

I have no problem with the professor being flexible if he so chooses. I think the difference is I don’t levy an expectation that he is. I also don’t think he’s unreasonable for expecting people to be on time in a professional setting.

The world we live in, with the people we live with, require accomodations every single day.

Not locking a door allows the students who were delayed on the road by a car accident, as much as the disabled student who took five minutes longer than expected after falling down some stairs.

Every single person makes mistakes at times. If those are not absorbed by flexibility, then they go on to affect everyone else connected to the punished.

If the professor is delayed due to a tire puncture, should they lose their tenure?

It also allows the people actually in the class a lesson uninterrupted by random people for variety of good/bad reasons.

Most 90% of students is not late on any given day. Should they all be penalized for the actions of a few?

So you're happy to punish 10% of students, for no fault of their own. You'll trade a moment's distraction, for a paid-for day's learning.

That, is a lack of empathy. Especially as for about the last hundred years universities have had a process that allows for the necessary flexibility.

To take this to the extreme... Should we simply fire everyone who is late to work, without reason? If someone else causes a car accident, should we simply revoke the licenses of everyone involved, regardless?

Come now, we can be more extreme than that! Late for class, your city gets nuked. Forget an assignment, bioweapon deployed. Bomb an exam, and you're on the first plane to the front lines in Ukraine.

See also: we can reduce the number of police and compensate by increasing the penalties for crime (late 20th century edition).

> Should we simply fire everyone who is late to work, without reason?

Not necessarily, but I think you’d see a much more consistent attendance rate. Which is of course the whole point of such a policy.

The student is the employer, though. They are paying the university for a service. They aren't the employee.

The student is the customer, not the employer, if you must phrase it in those terms.

And I think education benefits when you define the student as a student, before anything else.

Those educational benefits are being denied here, for reasons outside the customers hands.

Jonathan Haidt details quite a few reasons why treating a student as a customer creates bad incentives and poor outcomes (just agreeing with you on the student-first point)

The request is not to transfer the burden onto the 90%, but to design a system where the 10% are able to participate without impeding the 90%.

For example, if students enter from the rear of the room, then delayed students can join without disrupting the on-time students.

If we start the design process with the awareness that some students will be late, then we can design systems which support all students.

Here’s a process for that 10%: wake up 30 minutes earlier to create a buffer that allows for unexpected events like traffic and for expected events like “I just can’t seem to be on time, maybe I’m sick.”

I’ve been in the 90% at times and in the 10% at others. People should be entitled to grace, and we shouldn’t just assume anyone who isn’t absolutely punctual is a malingerer. Unless you live alone on a thousand acres you’re perpetually giving other people grace for their foibles and they’re giving you grace for yours.

This doesn't work, any other smart easy solution to heal this disease?

"Just get less sleep, bro!" isn't the gotcha you think it is.

Make them sit at the back of the class?

>If the professor is delayed due to a tire puncture, should they lose their tenure?

This seems like a false equivalency. The student isn’t getting dropped from their degree program, they’re missing a class. If a professor is late, especially habitually late, I may not advocate for them losing tenure, but I’d certainly expect it to have a smaller impact like being brought up in a performance review.

They're missing a class, yes.

A class that they have paid to access.

A class that the professor would not be teaching, if they did not believe it essential to the degree program.

They are being denied access to something both important, and already paid for.

“Already paid for” does not imply you get to have it on your terms, however and whenever you want it. As an earlier comment alludes to, this is part of the problem of treating students as “customers”.

Maybe we should just be a little lenient to everyone, on principle?

What of the ADD student who gets distracted when someone comes in late? What should we tell them. "Suck it up"

What of the daycare that's expecting you to show up and pick up your kids on time. Should we tell the workers to wait, because the guy replacing you at work was late. Then of course we tell the cleaners of the daycare to start their shift 30 mins later because they have to wait for the last kid to leave. Oh and the cleaners will have to stay 30 min extra to clean, so now we tell the people relying on them to wait. Or.. Or we tell the cleaners to work a bit harder so they don't take an extra 30 minutes..

So the 30min you're late messes up the day of not just the person expecting you, but all the people expecting them.

How about on principle anticipate that you're going to be late, and make an effort to arrive early. If you know you're late all the time, start giving yourself more time.

It is baffling that you are claiming “can’t show up on time” is something professors need to work around as a reasonable accommodation.

In cases where a student shows up 10+ minutes late to a course and disrupts the lecture, what percentage of the time do you estimate the reason for tardiness is a diagnosed or undiagnosed illness or hardship.

Then maybe the easy solution is to make sure anyone showing up late doesn't disrupt anything? That accommodates everyone, is flexible, and does not unfairly punish anyone.

_THAT_ is flexibility.

Isn't it reasonable that we try to disrupt each other as much as possible as a default? It seems odd to force that responsibility onto another party. (ie it's weird to assume the professor is responsible for making sure another adult isn't disruptive)

> Your Prof Ramsey would have penalised me for this unknown condition. This isn't behaviour to be celebrated.

On the contrary, your anecdote is evidence of how this seemingly arbitrary behaviour can actually uncover real issues and prompt people to question and investigate.

Why not. I mean if you're expected to come and relieve a co-worker at 5pm, because he has to go get his kids from daycare, and you show up at 5:30 so now the police are at the daycare collecting his kids (because he's waiting for you all the time)

It always baffles me. Make accommodations for your conditions.. So the 30 plus students are meant to have their time interrupted by a late arrival. I have ADD, so when in a class if someone comes in late, I get distracted and can't pay attention. Which person should this prof accomodate? Me with ADD or you.

The "make accommodations" is always argued by the few, against the needs of the many. It's self centred. If waking up is hard, go to be earlier, get a better alarm clock, pick classes later in the day. Make accommodations for your own disability.

My ADD has me working from home, with noise cancelling headphones. I accommodated my own-self.

You seem to think that if everyone were more empathetic, it would be possible to arrange our society so that people with serious un-diagnosed medical conditions never have to miss out on anything important.

As someone who is _often_ late, your inability to be there in time is not someone else's problem. Unfairly punished...gimme a break.

Its so strange to me that when it comes to college no one has any empathy whatsoever for students. Its so absurd.

Some people don't have empathy for students regarding this particular subject.

That's a common point of view, but when your disability is never someone else's problem, it becomes waaaaaay harder to manage. You should display more empathy to people that don't follow the norm.

Except in this case, there is no information to the other party that someone has a disability. So the default that we assume someone has a disability is what most people take umbrage with.

I try to be generous as much as is reasonable. I generally assume the person who cuts me off in traffic may have an urgent need, but vaulting every misdeed to an assumption that it's due to some unknown disability crosses into unreasonable territory, if for nothing else than it's probabilistically a bad assumption. Taken to the extreme, it becomes enabling for everyone who does not have a disability but gets away with bad behavior.

Maybe people had ADHD and having students disrupt the class once it began made it hard to stay focused. The professor was making a reasonable accommodation for them and should be celebrated.

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