These student excuses are so outlandish they might just work. After reading this it will have you wishing you could have used one of these when you were in school. Or this is great for coming up with excuses if you're still in school!
“Well, I don’t go to church any more…”
“I gave my class of college music majors (organ) an assignment to visit 4 churches in the city of their choice and write up a report on the pipe organ found in each (i.e. number of stops, ranks, year built, maker, tonal qualities, etc. – and, of course, to play them). They were given a list of possibilities to choose from, along with contact information to make arrangements in advance to play the organ. One girl came back empty-handed by the deadline, saying that ‘going to other people’s churches was against her religion.’ When I replied, ‘Well, why didn’t you visit your own church, then?’ her excuse was ‘Well, I don’t go to church any more.’ The rest of the students loved the experience and asked to repeat it the following year.”
“I couldn’t stop laughing and know I knew why he was so nervous…”
“I teach at an apprenticeship for electricians so our students aren’t too young. Actually, our minimum entry age is 18. There was this one guy who I knew something was up because he was really nervous and quiet for some reason. Therefore I ask him for some help with project and I’m working on. I ask him if he did the homework I gave him yesterday and he said he didn’t because ‘my cat wanted to cuddle’. I couldn’t stop laughing and know I knew why he was so nervous.”
“I used to teach in a school for the super rich…”
“I used to teach in a school for the super rich. Many kids came to school in $100,000+ cars or SUVs. Also, it was in SE Asia. A few years ago we were having a huge problem with a kid showing up late for school. Not really late, but five or six minutes late- late enough that he was getting detentions every day, which turned into suspensions and the like. So one day I confront him when everyone else leaves and he acts like he’s deciding to come clean. ‘Mr Trekkie’ he says, ‘it’s really my dad’s fault. I’m always late because he won’t let us take the Ferrari anymore to school. Our new Range Rover is so much slower and that’s why I’m always late.’ Then I ask him how his Ferrari was transporting him, his sister and neighbor. And who was driving. He told me his driver was driving. Then I asked him how four people could fit in a Ferrari, because the Ferrari he said he owned was a two seater. He stared down at the ground and said ‘I just don’t get up on time.'”
“The commander thought it was so funny he let the guy get away with it…”
“Kind of relevant a guy in my unit was late to come back to base in the army, he told the commander he was hitchhiking and a woman picked him up, made the move on him and they went to her apartment. The commander thought it was so funny he let the guy get away with it.”
“I asked her sister about it. She said they…”
“One of my first graders was a bit of a liar (just like her mom). Every time they were running late, there was a wreck or a flat tire or they ran out of gas. One day she said she didn’t have her homework… a simple paper where they looked for shapes around their homes. She said her pet ferret took it out of her bag, dug a hole in the wall, carried it to the basement, put it in the washing machine, stole the keys to her mom’s car, and ran away. So that’s why she was late and had no homework. I asked her sister about it. She said they didn’t have a ferret or a basement.”
“So, in a rush the only thing I can offer up is…”
“I had a major assignment that was due promptly at the start of my first-period history class in high school. I had accidentally slept in that morning, so I was running late. Despite my best efforts, I get there about five minutes late. My teacher asks me why I’m late. I’m already panicking, thinking I’m going to lose major points on this paper, and for some reason telling him I slept in doesn’t sound good to me. So, in a rush the only thing I can offer up is: ‘Uh……because I’m fat, slow and lazy, sir.’ He stands befuddled for a few seconds, then accepts my paper with no late penalty.”
“She graciously stepped in and coached the team…”
“This one girl said she couldn’t do her homework because she was at her brother’s football practice. While waiting, it became apparent that the coach was a no-show. WHAT TO DO?? She graciously stepped in and coached the team leaving no available time to complete her seven times table worksheet.”
“I thought it was a doctor’s note. But it wasn’t…”
“This has to be by far the most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard. Like did they think I was going to believe them?? I teach middle school and this one student comes in and tells me he didn’t do his homework from yesterday and he handed me note. I thought it was a doctor’s note. But it wasn’t. It was from one of his parents saying that their child did not do his homework packet because they felt watching the sunset was more beneficial. What the he**”
“His homework had been confiscated by Colonel Gadaffi’s police…”
“This one student said that his homework had been confiscated by Colonel Gadaffi’s police. Turns out the kid’s father worked for a Libyan bank, and the homework was about aerosols. Kid had gone to visit him during the summer break, and it was taken by the border guards.”
“He had become quite a celebrity…”
“In secondary school, my homework was taken and then eaten by a mentally ill student at lunch. I was given full credit. To give more information, he took my homework and started taking bites out of it. I used the excuse rather publicly in class, so after that it became the go to response for about a week, with kids frequently telling him to take bites out of their homework. Eventually he was moved to a different lunch period because he had become quite a celebrity.”
“Again this came from a junior in high school. I couldn’t believe he said that…”
“I teach math to junior students in high school. I assigned homework like I normally do each day. Well, this one day this boy comes in and doesn’t turn in his homework so after class I ask him to come over. I ask him why he didn’t do his homework and he said ‘My mom forgot to put it in my bag’. Again this came from a junior in high school. I couldn’t believe he said that. I ask him does your mom do your homework for you and he got all flustered and said sometimes. How this boy got to the 11th grade without any other teacher figuring this out astounds me.”
“Upon further investigation the school discovered that…”
“My college roommate was a student teacher at a middle school in Southeastern Ohio (one of the poorest areas of the United States). He had a student that was typically a good student in the classroom but never finished his homework. The school couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t complete his assignments. Upon further investigation the school discovered that he and his mother had been living in a cave.”
“My mom had a blind guy come to hand in his final paper…”
“Back in the day, my mom had a blind guy come to hand in his final paper, 30 pages tucked in a manila folder. ‘Sorry it’s the last day, just finished it last night! By the way sometimes my typing is a little messy, you know, hard to line up the paper… How’s it look, can you read it?’. She opens the folder and there’s 30 pages of neatly typed, almost invisible, uninked typewriter indentations. ‘Uhh… Yep, looks okay!’ She didn’t have the heart to say there was nothing there, so she gave him an A, and never did decide if that [person] was real unlucky, or real smart.”
“Needless to say I was dumbfounded so I…”
“I was teaching science to high schoolers. We were on this unit about earthquakes and for homework I assigned them to track earthquakes for a month (one a week). At then end of the first week they all come in and I ask them how their homework is doing and they all said ‘There weren’t any earthquakes in the world this week.’. Needless to say I was dumbfounded that there weren’t any quakes during that week so I decided to research to see if the students were right…they were wrong. There was about 50.”
“This excuse was so outlandish and ended…”
“The teacher told my class a story of why he doesn’t give retakes for tests. Apparently a kid was going on vacation with his family and his grandmother died in the car. Well they kept driving because it was too much work to go home. A cop pulled them over for a broken taillight and they all got arrested for the dead body. This excuse was so outlandish and ended up being true that he never wants to deal with that again. So he ask that you make it unless you got an excuse as bad as this.”
“Dude crashed his hot air balloon and broke his back…”
“My house caught on fire a couple weeks ago and we had to go through all of this crap and so I asked my teacher for an extension on a paper. She said that my house burning down was the second best excuse she had ever heard. I asked her what the best one was: Dude crashed his hot air balloon and broke his back. Yea I’ll take second place to that.”
“I talked to her and she just busted out…”
“I taught at really rural school, but this was too much. I had a student who said that his goat ate his notebook and his homework. Seemed like a reasonable thing to happen, as goats will eat anything. His mom was a teacher at the middle school, who came over all the time. I talked to her and she just busted out laughing saying they didn’t have a goat and that was the best excuse he has ever come up with.”
“The words had literally fallen off the paper…”
“Several years ago I had a student show up to class claiming that the homework assignment had disappeared from the paper I had given him. He gave me the piece of paper and I could see a sprinkling of toner from the copy machine and in holding it up to the light could barely make an imprint on the page. Then I remembered that in copying the assignments to hand out one page had gotten stuck in the machine before it had gone through the fuser. I pulled it out and stuck it in the stack. However, he was correct. The words had literally fallen off the paper.”
“A couple of weeks later, the kid is pulled out of school…”
“Not me, but a friend of mine is an elementary school teacher. One of her students said that his parents were ‘hammering the walls’ very loudly and he couldn’t concentrate on his homework. Naturally she has to write up a review and give it to the kid to give his parents. A couple of weeks later, the kid is pulled out of school. Turns out the mom was out of town and the dad was cheating on her in their own home. The mom left the dad and taken the kid with her.”
“I thought MAX (other student) was going to make and deliver mine…”
“Macroeconomics Teaching Assistant here. My students have to deliver weekly problem sets.
One of the worst excuses ever: ‘I thought MAX (other student) was going to make and deliver mine’, the problem sets are individual.
The stupidest comeback: ‘Can’t I just photocopy the next one and deliver it twice?’
The funniest: ‘My mom said I needed to party more, so I went to the club.’ The club part is true, I saw him there. I told him that that excuse was not good enough, 3 weeks later found him in the same club. He approaches me and says he brought the problem set, 10 minutes later he is in a table doing that week’s problem set.”
“I’m not sure if they really believed it but…”
“Not a teacher but I once took a screen shot of that computer screen saver where blocks of your screen move around the screen and printed out a picture of it with my half written report scattered across the screen. I said my computer had a virus. I’m not sure if they really believed it but I did get an extension.”
“I was in the middle of an Arbys with my pants off…”
“This one kid came up to me and told me ‘I didn’t do the homework because you aren’t actually a teacher, and I am just a figment of your imagination’ and I thought that was pretty funny so I laughed and gave him a pat on the back. but then I suddenly remembered that I had taken a lot of acid and realized I was in the middle of an Arbys with my pants off talking to a wet floor sign.”
“He most definitely did NOT believe me…”
“One Sunday morning in 9th grade, I woke up and could not open my eyes. Well I COULD, but looking at any light made them burn like you cannot imagine. So, so I lay in bed and wore an eye mask all day until I could go to the eye doctor the next day. I had some infection… Then I went to school—with somewhat openable eyes–and had to tell my bio teacher I couldn’t do the homework because I could not open my eyes. He most definitely did NOT believe me.”