Feb 012009
How I wish this graph from GraphJam weren’t as true as it is:
If I had a criticism, it’s that the creator was too generous with the “time spend doing legitimate research.” As a teacher I rely on my also being a tutor to know when my students show up at the Learning Lab to start typing their homework (sadly ranging from twenty minutes to an hour before the paper is due). Not that I wouldn’t be able to divine it even if I couldn’t see it every day with my own eyes. At the beginning of the semester, I do diagnostic essays with all my students to get a baseline on their skills and weaknesses. If in a matter of hours their English-aptness suddenly includes words like “frissible” or sentences like “It has been said that Derrida was the Camilla Paglia of his time but with a better haircut” I’m pretty sure that the work has been “wiki-enhanced”. Yet, for some reason, my students think I won’t notice or, worse, that I’ll let it slide, which is why I find find this graph to be more true and therefore more disturbing:
Let me tell you a story.
I hate plagiarism. I find it unnecessary, lazy and, quite frankly, insulting (see “baseline skills” above). At the beginning of every semester when I review my syllabus, I spend a good 10 – 15 minutes explaining what I think of plagiarism and cheating (see previous sentence) and what will happen if I catch a student engaging in this behavior (“I will make it my mission to be sure you are kicked out of school and not allowed back in. Don’t believe me? Try it. You’ll see what happens. Still don’t believe me? I’ll bet you know at least two students I’ve had expelled. Ask them if I’m serious.”). And yet every semester someone (sometimes “someones“) tries to pass off a Google-bite as their own. Worse, when I tell them they’re out of my class they argue with me even after I show them the print out of the page they copy-and-pasted.
Last semester, a student – I can’t remember her name so we’ll call her “Twyla McLesbianish” – was absent when we did in-class peer-editing, so it was up to me to give feedback on her rough draft. Which I did. Which wasn’t her work. Transparently. Obviously. Not. Her. Work. Twelve seconds on Google got me the article her intro was taken from. Twelve. So, I decided to do… nothing. If this student was honest, she would recognize her work as a fraud and change it to reflect her own abilities; however, if she were out for a “fast A”, then I’d let her hang herself.
She decided to hang herself in the final draft.
So, I did what I said I was going to do: I wrote a note on Twyla’s paper explaining why she was be withdrawn from my class, stapled the Google page to “her” paper, copied all of it and submitted it to the Dean, then deleted her from my class and gradebook. And just because I’m a swell guy, I emailed her as well, just so she wouldn’t show up to class unnecessarily.
The next day, Twyla came up to me in the tutoring center to ask me about a homework assignment that was due in an hour *sigh* I was somewhat taken aback because I knew she had a Sidekick and was forever checking her email, texting friends and writing Odes to Kristy McNichol on her blog. Nevertheless, I asked her if she had received my email from the previous day. She said she hadn’t. I switched into emotional neutral and explained my withdrawing her.
Normally, when I speak to students – anyone, really – I try to keep things light and jovial. However in situations like this, I remove all traces of my personality from the equation, just so no one gets the impression that I think what they did is funny or “no big deal” or that I in some way approve. I’ve recently been told this gives me a bulldoggish appearance, and I look more aggressive than passive. Students later complain that i was “mean” to them, when really I was trying to not be mean. Next time it happens (and it will) I’ll have to make a run for a mirror and see for myself how fearsome I become.
Twyla denied any wrongdoing even when I showed her her paper and the printed page from where she had lifted the text. No, I wrote that myself. What an odd coincidence! I maintained that such “coincidences” were still frowned upon, and that I had already withdrawn her from class. This was notification, not bargaining. But I didn’t cheat!
I’m sorry you think that, but I’m holding the proof here in my hands that you did.
Twyla then tried anger:
You hate Deaf people! (This goat-song has got to be the worst meme invented (personally I point to Toxic Bitch and Alleged Rapist as the flashpoint for all this chest-pounding and bleating), yet I hear it every semester with the regularity of my dog farting. If I really hated Deaf people would I have stayed in the Deaf Ed Biz for 15 years? Probably not.)
No. I hate cheating.
And because no argument is complete without triangulation, Twyla announced, I’m telling P. about this! (P. works in the registrars office as a counselor and, as much as I love her, she is really the wrong person to complain to. My boss’ name is M. She‘s the appropriate person to complain to, but she has the nose of a bloodhound when it comes to smelling bullshit at 50 paces, which, of course, is not what my students want. Honestly, P. has the same kind of nose, but she comes off as more sympathetic to the students than M. does, even if the end result is the same.)
Well, have fun with that. You’re still out of my class.
The events of the next few days leading up to the meeting with P. included a pre-meeting meeting with Patti (adults only), scheduling and re-scheduling said meeting, fending off ridiculous statements from my colleague Donika like I have a student crying in my office about being withdrawn from your class. Why don’t we try to solve this misunderstanding?, and enduring watching Twyla tell all the Deaf students within eyeshot of me how unfair I am and how much I hate Deaf people (see above) and how there should be a petition going around to get me fired blah blah blah. And when it came down to it, the whole kerfuffle felt just like “blah blah blah“:
Meeting with P. blah blah blah.
Further denial of wrongdoing blah blah blah.
My producing evidence to the contrary blah blah blah blah.
Student claiming she didn’t do it (it seems it was her girlfriend who typed the paper, which doesn’t help her case at all as it’s still an expulsive offense (“unauthorized collaboration”); which makes me wonder how said girlfriend would feel about being thrown under the bus that way) blah blah blah.
My expressing no sympathy blah blah blah.
Student threatening to call her parents (even though FERPA laws prevent me from discussing any student’s grade with any person in the world except said student) blah blah blah.
My explaining FERPA to student blah blah blah.
Student deciding to escalate to my boss, M. blah blah blah.
Huffy departure from P.’s office blah blah blah.
My wondering why I still do this blah blah blah.
By this time, I had spent almost three hours explaining a policy I had already taken 15 minutes to explain on the first day of class, compared to the 75 seconds it took me to identify the cheating and fill out the withdrawal paperwork. My ray of hope was that M. would look at the student and say, “Get out of my office.” Which she did. Metaphorically speaking (M.’s too classy a dame to be that dismissive).
So, long story short: I have no sympathy for people who cheat and waste my time. I have even less time and sympathy for liars who want to avoid the consequences of their actions. So, if any of my students are reading this, be warned. Again.
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