Excuses

Many schools are either out for the summer or approaching the finish line. Our school, unfortunately, is still trudging away, willing ourselves to finish strong. Despite the oft heard question from students, "Do we have to do anything the last week?", the oft given response continues to be, " As a matter of fact, yes." Taxpayers would expect no less I'm sure.

What will not change, however, is the litany of excuses for assignments not completed. After almost 30 years of teaching, some excuses stay the same but others are a sign of the times. Here are a few of my favorites.

1) "My nanny threw my project away when she was cleaning my room."--Say what? The first time I heard this one, I simply had no response. My world does not include hiring full time household help and we defy child labor laws by requiring children to clean their own rooms. Rest assured, the students using this excuse are still required to complete their academic obligations. Maybe some of them recruit a nanny to finish projects for them but such indiscretions are out of my control.

2) "Our printer is out of ink so I couldn't get a hard copy of my paper."--None of that phrase would have made sense when I first started teaching. Printers were real people in the back of newspaper offices. Ink was found in ball point pens and a hard copy was when someone had a difficult time cheating from a classmate's paper. Now, it goes without saying, printers are notorious at sabotaging last minute projects. My advice to all students is, "Don't wait until the last minute. Stuff happens."

3) "I left my binder in my Dad's car and I won't see him until next weekend."--This is a classic now. Whether the excuse is legitimate or not, the truth of the matter is that many, many, many children are shuttled between at least two households. The other kernel of truth is that the students who most often use this excuse have never even thought of bringing a binder home to work on homework. As is the case for most chronic excuse makers, an excuse keeps the wolf away from the door only so long. At some point the house of cards comes tumbling down, regardless of whose car ate the homework.

Finally, the most prevalent excuse used for avoiding work in the classroom:

4) "I don't have a pencil."--I have given away hundreds of pencils in the last ten years of my career. Bringing basic supplies to class seems like an unfair demand for many students. In fact, walking to the free pencil supply container on my desk also seems ridiculously strenuous for a few of my cherubs. I shake my head and give them the free lecture about "showing up at a future job without your uniform for the third time and seeing where that will get you". They shrug and head back to their seats with a big thought bubble coming out their heads saying, "Doesn't she know you don't need a uniform to be a famous you-tuber?"

If I sound like a teacher who is ready for summer break, you are correct. I am ready for an excuse-free couple of months. Unless you count the excuses I will be using for not getting my ginormous to-do list finished. But I promise to keep my pencils sharpened just in case I am ready to check off an item or two.