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At Least They Were Honest!
“My dog ate it” just doesn’t seem to cut it these days. Mr. Potter of Harry Potter and the Urban School Nightmare had a student offer the following excuse to get out of a recent test:
Mr. Potter: *Student*, you missed a test yesterday. You need to make it up.
Student: But Mr. Potter, I have an excuse!
MP: Well, you still need to make it up -- what's the excuse?
S: I was in court!
MP: For what?!
S: Stealing form Target.
Hey, I hope the kid was at least in middle school. I have had kids say they were in the ER all night because their mom's boy friend was sick and they had no doctor and the kids had no place to go other than to tag along with mom and BF, so they spent the night on the floor in the waiting room.
How can you penalize a kid for that one?
Seems like that putting that story on paper would be a great creative writing assignment to make up for the homework or test he missed.
Tom Anselm, teacher/author
YOU'RE NEVER TOO OLD FOR SPACE CAMP
It's hard to make taking a test relevant to a student that has made a choice to commit a crime like stealing. The challenge for educators is to make school exciting and relevant to students' lives.