By Marissa Higgs
Teenagers are clever, especially when it comes to getting out of trouble. Most, if not all, Lane students have used some kind of excuse for getting out of doing homework or for being late to class. While some stick with more common alibis, others use their quick wit to fool teachers.
Liliana June, Div. 572, loves her teachers and does not enjoy lying to them often. Still, even she admits to pulling out a couple handy excuses once in a while.
“I said that I turned in my homework and that they lost it,” June said.
Her story was simple and worked, but she has witnessed a few more interesting excuses.
“A boy once said that his baby sister ate his homework. His baby sister was six months old,” June said.
This was not the only person to use an excuse involving a baby.
Kleirizza Geronimo, Div. 250, once had a class where another student used a similar excuse.
“This one kid told his English teacher that he works 40 hours a week and has a kid,” Geronimo said.
The English teacher excused the boy from having to do his summer reading project because of the cover-up.
Ms. Ulmer, another English teacher, has taught at Lane for two years and in that time has heard her fair share of stories from students. A majority of the excuses her students have told her are similar.
“If I had a dollar for every time a student said that their printer broke, I’d be a rich woman,” Ms. Ulmer said.
Mr. Piwowarczyk has been a teacher for 33 years. Excuses are nothing new to him. He did however have one student who came up with an excuse that he remembers to this day.
“I had a kid that brought a note that said he didn’t have his homework because he had a touch of cancer,” Mr. Piwowarczyk said.
While some of the excuses students give to teachers are entertaining, others can be a bit more serious. Matthew Peters, Div. 562, told his elementary school teacher a lie once to get out of trouble for not having his homework. It did not turn out as he had hoped.
“I used [the excuse] that one of my relatives died, but it happened like the year before. Then my teacher told my parents ‘I’m sorry for the loss,’ and I was caught,” Peters said.
Grisel Medina, Div. 472, has discovered that the more elaborate her excuses are, the better they work. She is not necessarily proud of the fact that she has used them, but she does pride herself in her ability to make them up.
“I once told my teacher, ‘my parents are divorced and I slept over at my dad’s house yesterday but my books are at my mom’s house. I’m really sorry but I couldn’t ask to go back because they’re not on speaking terms’,” Medina said.
Ms. Taitt has been teaching at Lane for 18 years, and has heard a variety of excuses from students. She has caught onto the trick of using a long excuse.
“You can tell it’s an excuse because it goes on and on. It’s like a run-on sentence, it never ends,” Taitt said.
When it comes to missing homework, plenty of Lane students find it easy to tell teachers that they left it in their lockers or at home.
Homework excuses, however, are not the only explanations heard around Lane on a daily basis. Students are late to class all the time and many are constantly thinking of new excuses to feed to their teachers.
“You can just put on a crying face and say you threw up last period and then ask to go to the nurse. There; it’s an excuse for being late and to get out of the class,” Medina said.
Not every student at Lane uses excuses that are as well thought out. Several students can get away with being late to class by saying that the security guards didn’t open the doors when their lunch period ended, or that the kid in front of them was walking slowly.
Although some teachers at Lane admit to knowing when a student is feeding them an excuse, that does not mean that they all call the student out. Others just want to believe that their students are fact telling the truth.
“Most of the time we know, but we want to give them the benefit of the doubt because we’re so nice,” Ms. Ulmer said.
While Ms. Ulmer may be one of the teachers who occasionally lets an un-believable story slide, not all teachers are as forgiving. Ms. Paganelli is in her 8th year of teaching Italian and will often give the student a zero for not having an assignment. She does not have to deal with excuses regularly because of the relationship she has with her students.
“Most of the time I stress [to just be honest],” Ms. Paganelli said.
An excuse is just that: an excuse. The teacher who is told the story can either choose to believe the student or not. However, one thing is true: kids at Lane have come a long way from “my dog ate my homework.”
