hahaha alright how do you sweet talk teachers i need to know

YES THANK YOU

The most influential factor of sweet-talking teachers comes from your overall reputation in a school and with specific teachers. If you have a reputation for not turning in work on time and not caring about it, and for not putting in effort for anything, it’s gonna be really hard to sweet-talk your teachers outside of specific super dramatic situations. If you have a generally positive reputation, getting what you need with them is going to be a lot easier.

Personally, I have a long-standing reputation for overachieving and getting relatively consistent straight As. This reputation is secured between several teachers through several panicked discussions of anything less than an A. And before every test or exam, I consistently end up asking if there are extra credit questions. Not out of an effort to not fail, but for the chance to get higher than 100% (or to barely scrape my sorry ass out of an A-.) In other words, I have a reputation for sucking up to the teachers (because I can’t socialize with my classmates for the life of me) and for being, and I quote, “a creative kid who gets her stuff done. Gifted, but has some attention span issues.” Can you smell the gifted kid burnout + unmedicated ADHD + undiagnosed autism wafting off of me? /lh

Lying on the spot, and lying in general, is a surefire way to wreck whatever plan you’re cracking. Try to keep the sweet talking restrained to the teachers you have a tight and positive relationship with. They’re the most likely to give you extensions, extra help, etc. Back to lying on the spot specifically, solidify any plans for the time before you have to talk to that teacher specifically. Make sure whatever plans you make fit your circumstances and that they’re believable for the most part. Run through any possible scenarios and outcomes and how you’ll respond to them. If you have to lie at all, keep them to small white lies. If you planning on telling one teacher that you forgot, for example, your laptop at home, so you can’t show them the work you did online, you need to make sure to either actually leave your laptop at home, or keep it hidden in your locker/book bag and make sure nobody sees it. This means other students and teachers. Enough students are snitches to cause problems, and the teachers talk all the time. (AN: Don’t snitch on other students to get in goodwill with teachers. A positive reputation also includes other students. Sweet talking and sucking up to teachers doesn’t involve being a teacher’s pet and a snitch.)

For one specific example, my class was assigned a biology essay and had a week, including class time and a four-day weekend, to do it. This sounds like a lot of time to get the essay done, and I probably would have been able to if I had the executive function to get started on research. But obviously, I didn’t, and here we are, on the due date, and I’ve barely looked at the requirements for the essay. Specific circumstances were the main factor in this situation. The schedules had been weird for the past month or so, and it was starting to take its toll. But track had also started the Monday before it was due, and my everything is still sore. And the iPad keyboards are evil and hate everyone. I made sure to have a conversation with my Biology teacher about this the day before it was due, to plant the idea in their head that I was having technical issues with my iPad. He also agrees that schoolwide iPads were a stupid move. During my Biology period, when they asked if everyone had turned their essay in, I told them that a bunch of unfortunate situations had stacked up onto this one week. They told me that I was good and to just get it in as soon as I could. But that still means I have to write the essay :/

Most of it boils down to your reputation, your relationship with the teachers, and your circumstances. Try not to do this too often, the teachers pick it up really fast. :) 👍