Everyone has had their tough moments in life — especially in school — but don’t fret. My easy-to-use selection of “persuasion” tactics are a reliable way to improve any awkward classroom situation, from arriving to class late to forgetting to turn in an assignment.
We’ve all seen it happen; an upperclassman saunters into sixth period five minutes late with a bag from Taco Bell, spouting a nonsense excuse about getting attacked in the hallway on their way to class — and the teacher somehow believes it. So in this guide, I aim to teach the valuable skill of taking certain “creative liberties” when explaining your tardiness or missing assignments to teachers.
The structure of the guide is as follows: For each situation, there will be a walkthrough of what to do. However, it’s very important to note that the methods mentioned earlier don’t always work as intended, and the best, most effective methods are explained step-by-step at the end of this guide.
Let’s start with the most basic situation. Are you being accused of “missing” an assignment? Fear not!
If the assignment involved an online submission, a laundry list of technological issues must have infected your (and your family’s) devices. The key is to add expert-level technical jargon.
For example: “My toaster short-circuited yesterday, making the electricity in my room go out, causing the bandwidth to go up and the firewall to malfunction, leading my computer to overheat and wiping away all my progress on the assignment,” is sure to pass the smell test.
This passionate, detailed account of everything that went wrong is sure to stun your teacher, opening up a golden window of opportunity to ask for an extension. If you want to spice it up just a bit more, add in how you happen to live in the mountains (five hours away from the nearest computers at school and the closest library). Although risky, this move has a chance of further immobilizing your teacher, and your resulting discussion of the lack of key infrastructure extending up Highway 9 could even erase their memory of the missing assignment entirely.
With paper assignments, choose your words carefully; instead of relying on worn-out excuses like “my dog ate my homework,” use your creativity to truly display the lengths you went to try (and fail) to turn your work in on time.
For example, you could reverse the roles of the previous example: “My homework ate my dog, so I took it to court and sued it for animal cruelty and emotional damages.” By adding a very time-consuming event to your story — court cases are notorious for dragging beyond 11:59 p.m. — it becomes obvious that you couldn’t possibly have completed the assignment on time.
Attendance is an equally important topic to hone your storytelling skills on. Stumbling into class a minute after the bell rings? Remind the teacher you had to help scan ID’s in the cafeteria and clean up after lunch, all after making up three tests because you spent your entire tutorial making up tests for your other four classes.
Whenever you are using these methods, there are some important things to remember. Make sure to look deep into your teacher’s soul when talking to them, never fold under pressure and keep a bright smile on your face to maximize your chance of success.
Now, for the final lesson of this guide: While the aforementioned tips and tricks have high success rates, there is one ultimate technique that can tackle all situations in which gaslighting seems necessary. For late assignments, try keeping track of your upcoming tasks. This strategy does require a bit of planning, though: any day before the assignment is due, set aside some time to complete it. When the time comes to use this method on your teacher, present them with your work and watch the magic unfold.
This technique rewards you with a 100% success rate, and has been used ever since the concept of homework was invented. The facts speak for themselves — all students who have tried this technique have fallen in love with its simplicity and effectiveness.
Similarly, for tardiness and absences, leave some time before class to prepare. During this time, walk towards the classroom, head inside and sit down in your usual seat. You will never be marked tardy or absent as long as you apply this method, making it the most effective way to avoid attendance-related issues.
My personal recommendation is this final method. Not only is it the only method with an absolute guarantee of success, it also strengthens the bond between student and teacher. By showing your teacher the actual completed assignment or coming into class on time, you completely catch them off guard, wiping their memory of anything related to a missing assignment or tardy.
