There is a double standard when it comes to health and school. On one hand, a sick person is encouraged to stay home and get better. It is in the best interest of not only you, as the sick person, but also your peers, as the classroom is a haven for uncovered coughs and sneezes without the extra help. You can afford to miss one day! On the other, you really can’t.
Students are pressued to power through sickness and keep attending class, despite being encouraged to do the opposite. The fear of failure is often stronger than the discomfort of being at school while sick.
Of course the school and their no doubt well meaning staff do not want this to be the case, but it is. Especially in the more academically competitive areas of higher education, it often feels easier to bear through the sickness than to risk missing a lecture.
But this is a failing logic. The body needs rest! Otherwise the result could be longer time spent sick, or even worse illnesses! Your grade may appreciate your dedication, but your wheezing classmates probably don’t.
What is the driving factor that makes pushing through illness more appealing than taking one or two days to recover? It could be about bodily control. “I can beat this” is a lot more appealing than “my body is out of my control and I need to stop my regular schedule in order to let it recover”. That doesn’t necessarily let the institution off the hook, though.
I have never had a problem with letting my body be ill. I would take weeks off for illness if it meant I never had to be uncomfortable, but society seems to demand a level of discomfort from its members, both in school and in the workplace. We must restrain our illnesses, quietly, and for as long as it takes for us to be considered “productive members” of that day. Even if we’re allowed the option of staying home, online coursework has ensured that on our days off, we are never quite “off”. (As an aside, who decided that homework due at noon on a Saturday should be a thing?! I mean, really!)
What’s a sick person to do? Sniffing, sneezing, coughing, and just barely breathing, come the sick season the classrooms do not become smaller due to all of the people caring for their bodies, the classrooms become individual petri dishes of determined, sneezing honor students.
Unruly Bodies 
I agree with this completely. There’s shaming for taking a day off because of a common cold, but also an overall stress reaction to school and work. When we’re only allowed two absences a semester in order to get a good attendance grade, how can we take a day off to just breathe so that we can recoup and continue to do well in our semester and at our place of work? It makes it impossible to take a day off without getting overwhelmed with anxiety about missing a day, getting points deducted, missing important work, and getting shamed for it, even though we probably deserved the time off.
I completely agree that there is a double standard that exists here. And what is so unfortunate is that there is really no way to really win. It’s almost as if school has no consideration for the well-being of their students. I used to get sick all the time in school. I missed out a lot of days that was out of my control and suffered for it. But what people don’t seem to get is that some illnesses decapitates you so it’s almost impossible for you to go to class. I remember waking up to shooting pain around the circumference of my head in the mornings, when I suffered from chronic migraines in high school. They were so bad they left me unable to move most times.
I completely agree with you. I used to get sick a lot in high school, basically from the end of October until February, starting with a cold then moving to bronchitis and ending with the flu and every stop in between. Now I don’t get sick as much but I’ve learned that if I get stressed, let my anxiety increase, and don’t rest enough I get sick. But what am I to do in an environment where I am constantly anxious and stressed and unable to sleep the recommended amount even though my body requires much more? I often times feel myself waking up in a morning and knowing my body needs a day off but yet I can’t take it, I can’t miss material or there’s a test or I’m out of excused sick days etc. it makes school just another symptom in sickness and is very detrimental to both education and health.
Sing it.
This reminds me a lot of what we talked about earlier, in regards to the school failing to close for weather when there are very clear dangers for it. I think it all comes down to an unspoken contract the institution, be it school, work, or any other place you’re expected to be, that this is a competition for grades, diplomas, and careers. “We’re not closing the school. But you should still consider your safety first. But know that the other students are benefiting where you are not, and that’s your problem.”