Missing school is kind of scary. I have, on multiple occasions, come to school when it hurts my throat just to breathe, or when my stomach hurts too much to move, because I had a test that day or an important lecture I didn’t want to miss.
When you consider how competitive academics have become these days, staying home sick barely even seems like an option. The average GPA has increased significantly in the past few years, meaning the competition for university is tougher, and getting behind could cost you a grade or two. While being absent for a few days may not seem that problematic, it’s easy to miss assignments when you’re just working off of Schoology slides without a teacher there telling you what to do. It is also easy to get overwhelmed when you have double the work that you would usually have because you were home sick.
Out of 96 student responses on a Knight Errant survey, about 87% of students responded that they still go to school when they have symptoms of illness. Additionally, about 93% of students said that it’s difficult to catch up on work when you miss school due to illness. Most people I’ve talked to have agreed that staying home sick is just too overwhelming, so they just go to school anyway.
It’s true that with online learning it has become easier to complete in-class assignments at home, but honestly, I think that makes it worse. Before online learning, you would be able to rest and heal from your illness when you stayed home, but now you have to worry about completing assignments online. It basically defeats the purpose of staying home. It’s because of online learning that most teachers give students very little leeway to complete work on time. Now you try to cram in as much work as you can, while you lay in bed, too sick to do anything but eat chicken noodle soup.
Teaching students that they need to prioritize their academics over their own physical well-being is both unsafe and unhealthy. Society has sadly fostered an environment where school and work come before anything else, and people should just get over it. Unfortunately, there is no easy fix to this issue. Teachers can’t just slow down their classes for one student, and that student shouldn’t be expected to break their back trying to get work done either while they’re sick or once they’re better.