Ugh!

Here in the Benchama English Program finals are proctored by students’ homeroom teachers, rather than by the teacher of the test material. The thinking is that this prevents students in one class from talking to students in another class and giving the second class a higher score.

This system would work just fine if all teachers were equally concerned about cheating, if all teachers were equally diligent, if the presence of all teachers were equally respected. If.

As I look at the grades for one test, one room is 8% higher than the other room. For another test, one room is 12% higher than the other room. These are not standard trends. I have one student in a room where I was not proctoring who got 43 out of 45 points; 33 out of 45 would have been more typical. I would like to think the difference was intentional preparation by the student for the test. I find myself inclined to doubt.

While Thai students tend to show more outward signs of respect for their teachers, tend to place a higher value on decorum, they do tend to (as I was taught to call it) cheat. Some prefer to look at it as sharing. It’s a different mindset. When confronting students I have often heard “my friend helped me.”

Sorry for the rant.