Can Someone Explain?

So today a student comes up to me and asks me for the “list of assignments we’ve had so far so [he] can make them up.”  Now, there are times when this might not be a totally absurd question.  For instance, after a brief absence, the reason for which I’d been made aware.  But, as they say, context is everything.  Today is March 26.  Classes began in January.  Said student, while occasionally popping into class to say hello, has yet to hand in any work.  In fact, today was the first time I’ve seen him since ten days before Spring Break, which was last week.  And yet, he was absolutely floored when I informed him that I was no longer accepting any of those pre-Spring Break assignments.Now, I don’t mean this to become an anti-student rant of the kind a not-to-be-named-or-linked-to blog is becoming infamous for.  I mention it more as a way to try to understand it.  This student is in the class I referred to in the previous post.  He is not the only student in this class who has remained on the roster and attends (if somewhat irregularly) without doing any work.  He is one of only two, however, who has approached me at all about the fact that he hasn’t done the work (the other spoke to me on Monday, had work in hand, explained her situation, and we negotiated a solution). I guess my question is this: Is this all simply high school behavior, or is it something else? Is it some kind of collective denial that transcends the classroom, kind of like the Republicans thinking we are winning the war in Iraq? How can a group of students believe that they can pass a course when they have not done the work for more than half of the semester?  Each semester, I have one or two of these, but this semester, it is half of this class.  And even though I’ve said to them, more than once, that they should withdraw, they keep coming back to class, but not with any work.I’m just baffled.