Plagiarism and cheating are the enfants terribles of the classroom, but far more prevalent (probably because it is seen as less pernicious) is the student excuse. Often it is delivered as a brazen lie. Equally as often it comes as a matter-of-fact description of some pathetic circumstance that you, the Professor, are expected to accept with grace and benevolence.
We asked our friends over at Rate Your Students (http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com) to solicit their readers’ favorite student excuses. Here is a sampling, plus two that were sent to us independently. Many of the professors requested anonymity, so we extended it to all.
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“I will be unable to be in class today because every year we have a Jell-O wrestling competition on campus, and it has just come to my attention that the 50 gallons of Jell-O that we previously made has spoiled. So now I have to remake the 50 gallons before 9 o’clock tonight. ... I understand this is a really weird circumstance, but without the Jell-O we have no competition, and without the competition we lose all of our fund-raising. Thanks you, and have a good weekend.”
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I had a student who needed to be excused because she was donating her eggs to her aunt. I’m 99 percent sure it was legit, however. Who would make something like that up?
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“I’m not interested in the subject of this seminar, and therefore unlikely to answer an essay or exam question on it. I didn’t really see the point in bothering to prepare for it.”
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My favorite excuse from a student for “why I didn’t do my homework” was “because I was bitten by a shark.” He was a surfer, and his hand was bandaged up, too. It was nasty!
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A student vanishes for three weeks with no word. At the midterm, he shows up, takes the test, and sticks around after to chat. He tells me he got “crabs, but not from ... you know. You see, I bought this old mattress” and “I didn’t want to accidentally infect anyone in the class.”
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“You haven’t seen me before, but I’m in this class. I’m taking 24 credit hours this quarter because I’m trying to graduate. I just wanted to let you know. It’s just that your class is my lowest priority right now. I have a direct time conflict, and the other class is more interesting. Is that going to be a problem?”
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“Sorry I missed class, professor, but I had to stay with my girlfriend while she was getting her hair cut.”
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A student of mine recently floored me with this excuse. He was one of four students who had done a group project. He had drawn the short straw and was responsible for typing it and turning it in. He showed up a day late and told me that he had it done in time, but that he’d stuck it in the arm of his tiger costume — he’s the college mascot — and forgot it there, unable to retrieve it for two days because it was locked in the sports department offices.
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Another professor reports a colleague’s all-time favorite excuse: The student had missed the exam, he said in an apologetic e-mail message, because he was “incredulously sick.”
Send ideas to short.subjects@chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 53, Issue 20, Page A4
