Have you ever been late to your next class of the day? Have you ever felt that a class has been dragging on and on, and you look up to try to look at a clock to find what time it is, but there are no clocks? These scenarios and more have run through my mind more than once. My next question would be, why not put clocks in the classrooms?There are several different reasons why having clocks in the classrooms would be a positive addition. The most important reason is that many students have one class right after another. If there are no clocks in the classrooms, it is difficult to judge what time it is if no one has a watch, especially the professor.
In many different classes, the professor will continue to teach until students make it known that the class time has expired. However, sometimes by this time, you know that you are going to be late for your next class, with inevitable consequences. For the class that you are late to, you may end up missing some valuable information, quizzes that you are unable to make up, etc.
Another important reason is for the students who choose to show up late for class. On several of the syllabi handed out at the beginning of the quarter, there is usually a section marked “attendance.” Here is where you would find, sometimes, that tardiness will not be accepted. Yet, because there are no clocks, how is the tardiness determined? This leads other students to think of the unfairness of the professor not fulfilling a punishment for the wrongdoing.
If you have had any of these or other things happen to you, then you know what I am talking about. However, there have been no discussions or petitions, to my knowledge, that are conclusive to putting clocks in the classrooms.