Arrive on time (book excerpt)

It’s a matter of respect.

In some schools, arriving late to class is viewed seriously, with strict rules, late slips, detentions, and other penalties for those who are tardy too often. In other schools, these issues don’t seem so important. Most students attend 6-8 classes each day, along with occasional assemblies, meetings, rehearsals, and practices. It’s a busy life, but it’s also often repetitive. If your school doesn’t stress the importance of arriving on time, it’s easy to slip into the bad habit of thinking it’s not really important.

However, in the real world, arriving on time can be very important. Some cultures value punctuality more than others, but in those cultures where it’s important, arriving late can be a serious problem. What’s the big deal about arriving late? It’s a sign of disrespect. A student who arrives late to class is sending a message to the teacher: “You and your class are not very important to me, and making you and the rest of the class wait for me or disrupting the class by entering late is really not a problem, because you and my classmates are much less important than I am.”

Later in life you’ll be happy to have the habit of arriving on time when you have to get to work each day, attend business meetings, make appointments with doctors, lawyers, and bank officers, etc. Arriving on time for dates can be important, too. In each case, by arriving on time you send the message that you respect others and appreciate the value of their time and attention.

If you are in the habit of arriving late, start arriving on time today.

Author: Eric MacKnight

I have been teaching English since 1980 in the United States, Morocco, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, The Netherlands, and China. Good Habits, Good Students is my first book.

4 thoughts on “Arrive on time (book excerpt)”

  1. I definitely agree. Arriving late to class is unacceptable. However many students do not have that discipline. I believe it is not stressed enough in the school system. In high school many students shrug it off; however they enter college it’s a whole new ball game. It is that much more important to be there, things are moving at a much faster pace. A student may come in 10-15 minutes late and may have missed a whole concept that will not be brought back up till test day! It’s possible; it happened to me while attending college.

  2. I totally agree…..students arrive at school late but fail to know the significance and consequences whenever they branch off to teritiary institutions. Most importantly they never know the goodness of punctuality until they approaches the real world where they are expected to reach work at times where they are not accustomed to…….yah know what i mean……….I guess the thing is that some students take it for granted that because they are in primary or high school they can arrive at whatever time they please, but the notion is very different at college, university and in the workplace…..

  3. Thank you for this article. This is quite helpful, and hopefully, it will help me to arrive on time and stay punctual.

  4. I agree because when students come to class late, it can disrupt the flow of a lecture or discussion, distract other students, impede learning, and generally erode class morale. Moreover, if left unchecked, lateness can become chronic and spread throughout the class.

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