2s and 7s

Tomorrow morning I have a parent teacher meeting. Knowing that their parents were going to see their grades, a number of students asked if they could turn in homework late. I said yes.

After school I got busy grading, they got busy doing homework. Around 8:00pm after most of the students had left, I noticed that the handwriting on one kid’s paper was dramatically different than the handwriting on another assignment with the same name on it.

As I looked closer this was true of a number of the assignments turned in by various students. I also noticed that some of the students who had been doing work had not turned in any work. It’s great that friends are willing to stay after school and help each other with homework. It is not great if the “help” given involves putting one person’s name on another person’s work.

I was pretty frustrated. I had stayed late grading work that ought not even to have been turned in. I had spent time entering grades into my grade book. I then had to spend time reentering zeros over the scores I’d entered.

2s and 7s are quite different from one student to another.


Comments

4 responses to “2s and 7s”

  1. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    That was definitely the worst part of my semester of teaching. One of my classes never had a single instance of cheating, while the other had seven students who were always trying to wiggle out of assignments one way or another. It never ceased to put knots in my stomach. I don’t think students who copy realize the angst with which a teacher writes those zeros.

  2. Time to teach them a new English word…
    “Busted.”

    Look at it this way, you get to set a precedent for cheating, and once you have the reputation of having zero tolerance for that sort of thing, they will either get really tricky and fake you out and you won’t know and so it won’t bother you, OR they won’t attempt to and you won’t be bothered by it. I supposed the former isn’t quite as good as the latter….
    to quote Bree ,” You humans are such rum things.”

  3. sojiah Avatar
    sojiah

    hey Micah,

    man, I’m sorry about that. What a bummer of a situation! I hate that kind of thing, and it is so much harder on the teacher than the kids–darn kids!

    Hey, if you have any time this week, we should do some skypin’. I’m here in Marburg until sunday, then I go to Munich, and then to London.

    Praying you are well, through everying.
    sie

  4. sojiah Avatar
    sojiah

    as you can see, I left out the “th” in “everything.” That’s because germans don’t pronounce “th” very well. Also because I forgot.

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