Kids will be kids, and one thing anyone who works with kids knows for sure, it’s that they definitely think adults are stupid and clueless.
And maybe that’s why they thought these 11 excuses for not having their homework done would work, because I can’t imagine anyone with half a brain letting these slide.
11. It’s usually the dogs.
I was a middle school science teacher. My cat ate about 12 different students homework the 1st time I took papers home to grade. I had no idea my cat loved paper so much, but I got up the next morning and the stack of papers was shredded.
My students thought it was hilarious when I told them, “I’m sorry, my cat ate your homework.”
10. Poor Aunt Laura.
I don’t know if ridiculous but a classmate of mine changed his profile picture on Facebook with a candle on black background (signifying death of a family member) with the caption “we will miss you Aunt Laura”.
Hundreds of people offered their condolences.
I messaged him asking what happened and he said it was faked just so our professor would give him a week of extra time to “mourn” because he hasn’t finished an important project yet. 2 months in and the teacher still hasn’t found him out on it.
9. Sounds like a pretty good excuse to me.
Not a teacher, but one of my classmates in 5th grade came to school with a cast and said his homework wasn’t done because he broke his arm and was at the hospital all night
He actually broke his dominant arm and she told him that that was no excuse for not completing his homework
8. She…didn’t know?
Not a teacher but when I was in school my elderly geography teacher told us about a boy he went to school with. He didn’t do his homework one day and the his excuse was “the sow gave birth last night”
Their teacher wouldn’t hear it and caned him for not doing his homework.
The next day the boys father came in in a rage to tell off the teacher. Turns out the boy was a farm kid and one of their pigs went into labour and had struggled to give birth that night so the whole family had to get involved. The teacher was really embarrassed and had to apologise to the kid.
Turns out she didn’t believe him because she didn’t know that “sow” was what you call a female pig. That kid never had to give another excuse to that teacher for not doing his homework for the rest of the year
7. They sound like a fun teacher.
A student nonchalantly told me he didn’t finish his essay as he was just so busy that weekend because his dad died. My gut told me he was bullshitting me but I played along expressing my condolences and him told him to take as long as he needed.
After class I called his mom and told her I was so sorry for her loss, what a horrible tragedy for her family, etc. and mom was like “Wait, what? What are you talking about?” I recount to mom how her son told me about how his dad died this weekend and mom is like no he didn’t; why would my son say such a horrible thing. Then I played dumb and say in a shocked tone, “Do you think it’s because his essay was due today and he wanted to get out of it? No, he could never do such a thing!” Mom said not to worry that she would handle it.
The next morning the kid handed in his essay and asked if I knew all along. I gave him a dramatic “Why, I never!” and we both laughed. He ended up with an A as he was a competent writer.
6. Everybody wins?
During the final I game to my English students at Vermilion Community College in 1994 (Ely, MN), a student showed up30 mins late for the final, huffing and with camos splattered in blood.
“Mr X., I just got my buck about a mile from campus and it’s out there freshly dressed but not safe. Can I retake the…’
‘Go, go’ I replied. ‘Congratz. Meat waits for no man, but a final exam, devoid of blood and viscera, will be waiting for you. Bring me some meat!’
And off he went among a smattering of laughter, and I got a few pounds of ground venison which were delicious.
5. Not so bright.
I have a sister who is a couple years younger. She ended up having some of the same teachers I’d had, some of whom I had stayed in contact with afterwards. Well, and I was in high school, I ran into my former teacher (her teacher at the time).
She mentioned that she got a book report from my sister on a book that was fairly obscure. So obscure, in fact, that the only time the teacher had ever seen somebody read that book was when I had read it.
She then told me to tell my sister that if she was going to steal my work, she should make sure to change the date on it, too.
4. It probably really happened.
Haha this brings back some memories. Not a teacher, this was a close friend of mine: “my mum chucked it in the bin”. Basically her mom is obsessed with cleaning. She hated the slightest bit of clutter.
My friend had done her homework and must not have tidied it away clearly enough for her mother so she threw it away. She only realized the next morning. There she was telling the teacher in class, what could he do? Yell at her mom and give her detention? The parent was involved in the excuse! He was visibly annoyed but she got off no problems!
In case anyone is in dire need of a get out of homework card that guarantees no consequences, here it is!
3. No one is buying that.
Not quite homework, but the most ridiculous excuse for behavior I’ve ever heard came yesterday.
Kid types “bitchessssssss” in chat and claims that he did it by accident because he was trying to answer the question we asked and was starting with the word “which.”
This is doubly ridiculous because we weren’t answering in the Zoom chat – we had a separate web app he had been answering all the previous questions in successfully for the first 35 minutes of class. I pulled him into a 1-on-1 breakout room and he doubled down on the lie rather than owning up to it.
2. Dogs, man.
Piano teacher here. Had a young student say his mom went shopping so he couldn’t practice. So his mom went shopping all week? Hmmm…
Another time during a Zoom lesson, saw a students dog literally eating her homework! Was funny as heck and luckily already graded.
1. Right on cue.
Not a teacher but…
I had a classmate who was blind and had a seeing eye dog. One day he told the teacher that his dog ate his homework (he did homework through some Braille device thingy) and his dog looked genuinely guilty. She said “that’s not good enough” and the dog promptly vomited up paper with typing on it all over the floor.
He got a very quiet “sorry” and was never asked for his homework in that class for the rest of the year 🤣
Sometimes you just have to laugh, right?
Teachers, share your own stories with us down in the comments!