The Pedegogy of Procrastination

Greetings, fellow future-teacher procrastinators!  So I was just here reflecting about how, like the good college student that I was, and now the good grad student that I am, I have picked up and perfected the art of “putting off for tomorrow what should be done today,” of squeezing every last second out of a loose deadline, so long as I got the work in before an automatic F would result from turning it in later.  I then started thinking about how, going into teaching, at least in my experience, not much will change.  Come on, we can all remember teachers we’ve had throughout the years who put off deadlines, handed assignments and other materials late, and took 2 extra weeks getting those tests and papers back to us (for some of us, this was torture, for others, a blessing in disguise).  So relax, sit back, and keep procrastinating, because our fellow teachers 2 years from now will be doing the same things, right?  Well, maybe.  But something about this seems wrong to me.  How will we, as educators, expect homework to be turned in, papers to be written, projects to be presented and exams to be studied for in a timely manner, if we ourselves aren’t performing our educational administrative duties in a timely manner?  If there’s one thing I know about kids, it’s that they can absolutely smell hypocrisy from a mile away.  “Do as I say, not as I do” never works well for anyone, let alone young students.  So I propose we (or maybe just me, if I am honestly the only one) get our acts together, and start training to lead by example in the punctuality department.  I think this might just be one of our most important demonstrative jobs as educators.