I recently read an article about Grace, forgiveness, and accountability in the workplace, which made me reflect on what my students have taught me about the transformative power of Grace.

My favorite quote about divine Grace comes from Anne of Green Gables. After Anne is adopted, her new guardian, Marilla, encourages her to say an evening prayer. After discovering that her young charge has no idea how to say a "proper" prayer, Marilla realizes:

"[Anne] knew and cared nothing about God's love, since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love."

Teaching with Justice

I've designed and taught university courses for well over a decade. For most of that time, I've had a very simple late-work policy:

If you ask for an extension before an assignment is due, I'll always grant it. If you ask for one after the due date has passed, you receive a zero.

A simple and natural consequence. After all, isn't this how the real world works? If there's one thing people in any generation can agree on, it's that people in the next generation need to experience more consequences.

Grace and the Grid Collapse

Last year, I started teaching courses for an organization called BYU-Pathway. Most of my Pathway students reside in Africa and South America. They tend to be older than my US students, often working multiple jobs to support their families while facing unique challenges.

Consider this message I recently received from a student:

I apologize for not submitting my assignments for a couple of weeks. This was due to the power outage in Nigeria caused by a grid collapse. I have been able to secure a two-week leave from [work], this is to enable me to turn in all my pending assignments.

I am currently in transit to another city where I plan to spend the next two weeks. I kindly request the opportunity to submit my pending assignments.

This was very different from most of the late homework pleas I receive, and I granted his request without hesitation. In this situation, it was clear that mercy should be the guiding principle.

As I sent my response, the cynical part of me wished some of my US students could see this student's situation, so they could understand what "real problems" look like.

Seeking the One

Pathway has an interesting outreach mandate. Every week, instructors are supposed to reach out to any student who has failed to submit their assignments and ask if they need assistance.

When I first heard about this, I was...unenthusiastic.

The idea of chasing down missing assignments ran counter to my ideas of natural consequence. I had always believed that most students needed more accountability to be successful, and it felt like reaching out to them about missing assignments shifted the accountability to the wrong party.

But as I grudgingly complied with this program, something unexpected happened—rarely did I have to reach out to a given student more than once.

There were exceptions of course, but in almost every case, after I had reached out to a student about missing work, they rarely missed another deadline.

Convinced that this was a geographical phenomenon, I decided to apply this same process with my US students. I was sure they would take advantage of this undeserved mercy and I'd be stuck grading late essays until the end of my days.

Imagine my surprise when the results in the US mirrored those of my international students.

As I read through the replies I received to my emails, a few themes emerged:

All of the students I reached out to expressed gratitude (and sometimes surprise) that someone had taken the time to ask after them.

A few of them mentioned that knowing someone believed in them was inspiring.

Most shared a renewed commitment to work harder.

I finally understood what was happening. My students didn't need more experience with justice—they needed to understand and experience grace.

Modeling Grace

While divine Grace can only come through Jesus, as we seek to follow Him, and lead others to Him through our example, why is applying justice so often our first instinct?

Why isn't offering grace our default?

"But, what about accountability?" I hear some of you asking. After all, shouldn't students be held accountable for deadlines? Won't giving them a pass on late assignments teach them it's okay to be irresponsible?

I used to think that.

And just as in the case with divine Grace, some students still decided to go their own way and ended up with poor grades as a result. The accountability was still there—students who changed their behavior received good grades; those that didn't, received poor grades.

But almost universally, those students who experienced grace were transformed by their experience.