Before going into the claim of “there should never be an attendance policy”, let’s give some context! 

When going to high school most classes or institutions, for not to say all, have an attendance policy that requires their students to attend everyday but they are allowed to miss up to 3 days without a grade punishment unless there is a great motive that retains the student from attending. This superior motive must be notified to the school officials and most of the times require a doctor’s notice meaning the students are not attending because of health issues. 

When going to university, attendance is considered by the class instructor and the department that the class may belong to, for example technical writing belongs to the English department. Some classes consider attendance for grade and others without having countability pass the list and in the syllabus it is mentioned that if you miss more than a certain maximum of lectures you would receive a letter grade punishment. If I get an A as final grade because of low attendance I receive a B. 

Given the different attendance policies, what happens if the student has anxiety or an overload of stress during the school calendar? Are they mandated to attend a professional that particular day to submit the notice so he/she cannot be punished? Some professionals actually have a waitlist and most of the time because of mental issues not everybody is strong enough to reach a psychologist. In some other way, it could also be considered a breach in the privacy of students as these most of the times have the need to report their doings to the professor/teacher if they do not attend class. 

Quick and easy, under my consideration, attendance should not be taken into consideration as long as the student can successfully pass the class and learn the essentials taught.

Image by pikisuperstar on Freepik

I started having panic attacks when I was five. A bit young in my opinion but still I remember the day so clearly. I went to the beach with my family and when the day was over we all went to the bathroom to change into regular clothes. I did not want to wear what my mother picked out for me and instead brought the outfit I wanted to wear. This little thing made my mom furious and she started yelling bloody murder at me in public. I started breaking down, hyperventilating, crying, and every limb in my body locked. I couldn’t move, I sat on the concrete floor, crying, trying to catch my breath. My mom was apologizing profusely when she realized something was seriously wrong. The paramedics arrived because no one knew what was going on. They said I was just dehydrated. Nothing about a panic attack. My panic attacks have continued to this day and they are always this severe. To make matters worse, I developed anxiety and depression soon after my panic attacks started. My parents have gotten used to it now, they don’t comfort me like they used to. Instead, they choose to yell at me and tell me I’m crazy, they tell me I have to control my emotions or I will never get over my phase. So, I try my best to hide my emotions around my parents, I go to other people for help instead of them, and I developed some healthy and unhealthy coping methods.

I don’t have ill feelings towards my parents for how they handle my panic attacks. They’re immigrants, from their country, mental illness was not taught and emotions are seen as a weakness. They can’t understand what they were never taught. Of course, I wish things were different and that I had parents that would comfort me and calm me down but I empathize with how they grew up. I know they have mental health issues too but they don’t understand it and choose to bury it, only to hurt themselves. They were taught to bury their feelings and they tried to teach it to me. It has affected how I have grown and how they have. I love my parents and I know they are doing their best, now that I am an adult I understand they were only trying to help me despite all the pain it caused.

It is hard having a chronic illness in an immigrant household. I didn’t even know my mental health issues were a chronic illness until this class taught me. We are not alone, generational trauma is hard and I know so many other people deal with the consequences too. So here is my lesson to you, we are not our illness, we can learn to do better for our children, and to forgive those who meant to do us no harm.

How does one determine who is a person rather than a biological entity of a human being? The checklist doesn’t consist of blue eyes, brown eyes, medium length hair, etc. although it does judge based on appearance. So how then is personhood earned?

It can be based on one’s intelligence, so if you get every A and push yourself past all limits to achieve the long term benefits it does not guarantee, you are showing your person ablitilies. It can tie into labor and how to be a functioning member of society. Be polite, but not too nice or talkative. Go to college to get a good job. I was somewhat under the impression that because I am a human being I have human rights which is true to an extent, but the lesser known, harder to achieve, subconscious rights are my person rights. 

”The Normalisation Agenda and the Psycho-Emotional Disablement of Autistic People” explains that the dynamic qualities of autistic people are understood from the outside–particularly with regards to parents and those facilitating behavioral treatment for autistic people–as a pathological deficit. The assumption of deficit here forges a negative association between the diagnosis of autism and the ability to function; the diagnosis in these spaces represents a problem to be solved or otherwise treated and responded to. While diagnoses can indeed help tremendously with necessary treatment and can aid an individual who finds themselves having difficulty completing necessary tasks, it seems remiss to think of a diagnosis in such a light that it is solely the predecessor to an attempt at changing the self/the self’s habits. Diagnosis can function as a powerful tool for crafting and strengthening one’s sense of self and consequently membership in a community. There’s a great deal of validation, too, that comes with having an explanation in some capacity for traits and habits that larger society (and potentially the individual themselves) might fail to understand.

I remember when my cousin told me and my mother she thought she had autism. I’ve thought for a long time that she’s autistic. My (and my mother’s) suspicion of this wasn’t a negative assumption meant to emphasize deficit, but a simple descriptor of someone we knew very well. When she told us this, both my mother and I told her we think she was probably right and that we see that in her too. She was so excited that we thought the same thing, visibly happy that we saw her. My mother talked to my aunt (her mother) about it and explained that she should look into getting her diagnosed because it can help her find the resources she might need to help her function the best she possibly can and she will be able to understand herself and be understood by her family and others better; my aunt was hesitant about this until my mom explained to her what a diagnosis could do. My cousin got diagnosed and it’s proven to be incredibly helpful. Previous misunderstandings between my cousin and her parents and frustration with her on their part were partially ironed out with this diagnosis, and she has a lot of joy participating in communities of other autistic people, especially online. I remember being overjoyed along with her when we agreed with her about her self-diagnosis, and in no capacity was I thinking of it as a problem. I’ve been very close with her our whole lives, and to me, the only real “problem” to be solved was other people failing to understand and accommodate her; she is an exceptionally intelligent, lively, and compassionate person and a diagnosis aided her in these areas. Joy, here, and in many spaces, is paramount. To remember that neurodivergent people can be and are joyful is to respect their complexity and humanity, and not fall victim to doom-centric narratives about diagnosis and the resulting action.

Talking about one’s mental health rarely ever happens in Asian culture. It’s an unspoken rule that we do not talk about any mental health issues or struggles we encounter. That it is something invisible or a weakness; if we do not talk about it, we can pretend it does not exist.

Mental health is no joke. I have seen people go from happy to depressed after just one small incident. I would term these as “healthy disabled”. “Healthy disabled” are whose impairments “are relatively stable and predictable for the foreseeable future” (Davis, 2013). Mental health tends to be visually shown through people’s emotions, but it can also be completely visible where a fake smile is made, yet they are depressed. Mental health can have consequences such as gray hair, stress which can lead to heart attack, physical health, and more.

I have suffered from mental health before and it was not great. What was weird was that something that seemed so trivial could become big and cause you to become depressed. The time I suffered from mental health was when I got called out for something that was not my problem. If you were told you were able to do something and you do it, you would think there would be no issues later on, but that was not the case. I kept thinking it was a trivial matter, but I kept thinking about it which led me to become straight up sad for a while. In this case, I considered myself as “healthy disabled” since I was not physically disabled. Next time you suffer from mental health, definitely do some meditation or some praying as both definitely helps a lot!