Today we had our final parent/teacher conferences for the year. Both Andy and Benjamin are doing really well academically. However, both teachers said the same thing about the guys: they aren't turning in their homework. Now, this was a surprise to me since they do it all on Monday afternoons (or most of it anyway, and then finish up on Tuesdays). According to the teachers, both Andy and Benjamin have not turned in between 50-70% of their homework. I just couldn't believe it. They do it all! It isn't like they aren't turning it in because they didn't finish it! Somehow, in between putting it in the backpack and arriving at school the next morning, it disappears into the black hole of homework. What is the deal here?? Why don't they follow through and turn the stuff in??

Worse, we are right in the middle of the conference and Ron pipes up and says that he never did his homework unless it meant that he wouldn't get an A or a B in that class. Apparently, he would figure out what percentage of his grade the homework was, and if he could skip all the homework and still get a decent grade, he would just skip the homework. Can you believe this?? And to admit it 30 years later!? And laugh?? I am the first to admit that I didn't do a whole lot of homework in high school, but I did it in grade school for sure. The other thing is that in Benjamin's classroom, the homework chart is hanging up for everyone to see. So we went in for the conference and looked up and there are a million stars on the sheet... except for Benjamin's row, which was about 2/3 empty. I guess Benjamin doesn't care that everyone can see that he hasn't turned in any homework.