Teacher sends emotional note to parents after 50% students fail to finish 'simple' assignment

Making students finish their assignments has always been a tedious task for teachers universally. However, when an English teacher tasked his students with writing a short poetry assignment, to his surprise, less than half of the kids turned in the work. Expressing his frustration on TikTok, @lamarjust218's video has been viewed over 753,000 times so far.

English teacher, Lamar, was surprised to see the quality of work from the students despite extending the deadline of the assignment. Writing an email to the parents of the students, the teacher explained, "They had this project due, [and] less than half of my students turned in the project on time. Of the ones that turned it in, I can honestly probably say maybe two of them did some quality work." After the students failed to finish the work on time, the teacher had no choice but to write an email to the parents. Reading out his email to his TikTok followers, Lamar said, "On Monday, we launched our poetry project, where students were asked to write their own Villanelle, then write an eight-sentence analysis on the very poem they created. In addition, they were asked to color and decorate the paper that they wrote their poem on."

Since he found out that many students hadn't turned in the work, he decided to extend the deadline. However, the teacher was still disappointed at the quality of work. He revealed that in the first period, 3 of the 22 students turned in the project; however, one of those was incomplete. In the second hour, 5 out of 23 students turned it in, and in the third period, 10 out of 22 students turned in the project, yet many of those were also incomplete. "I encourage you to ask your child what they did with their time. It is unacceptable for students to not have a poem and a paragraph with some colors done within four days," he explained. Although students in upper-level classes can be occupied with sports and other extracurricular activities, it is unclear why Lamar's students failed to turn in the assignment on time. The teacher urged parents to speak to their kids about the importance of finishing work before deadlines. Expressing his disappointment, he continued, "Needless to say, I am truly disappointed in the apathy that students are continuing to display." Lamar also lamented about "getting out of education," especially teaching English. "Teaching English is so hard and so boring," he said.

In a follow-up video, the teacher shared that he only received one response from a parent to his email. However, many other parents signed up to meet during parent-teacher conferences. "So I am looking forward to that day," he said. In a 2012 report, Pychyl, T. A., and Flett, G. L. found that procrastination strongly predicts habitual late assignment submissions. The study noted that students who frequently turn in work late are more likely to struggle academically because the delay reflects broader self-regulation difficulties rather than isolated behavior. 

Soon after the English teacher's video went viral, many users criticized students for their irresponsible behavior. @sarabell1030 wrote, "The bar is literally on the floor. When I was in high school this would’ve been a one period assignment and damn near every kid would’ve had it done in the 45 minutes we had." @cutsie.frog commented, "Babe I've written tik tok comments longer than your assignment. These kids are cooked." @_claireshannon wrote, "The sad thing is — the parents who would hold their kids accountable are probably the ones who already completed the assignment. Which is not many at all."

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