Can I take a make-up?

-or worse yet, the presumptuous "When can I take a make-up?"

There is the occasional student situation that may warrant a make-up, and if that's part of the class structure, fine. Yet when make-ups are not available, and even when provisions are made to make them unnecessary (drop a test, double-count a paper, etc.), students still ask, if not demand, for what they seem to think is their God-given right. I once knew an employer who would have a summer party for his employees, paid for by the employer's profits. He did this for several years, but one year, when business was bad, he decided to forego the party. Wouldn't you know it that the employees had their representatives storm into his office demanding that he restore their party, as he had no right to take it away from them. The point: his act of generousity had come to be regarded as an expectation, even a right. Similarly, students seem to think this way about make-ups. It is this attitude that is maddening, especially in those far-too-common instances where the "need" for a make-up is essentially a result of a choice based on priorities other than college, further exaccerbated by the expectation that it is the instructor's responsibility to fix the student's problem. While the character issues are frustrating, ultimately it is the underlying discounting of the value of education that we lament.