The Intrigue of Mystery

Prepare for some rambling. But it has been a long week and I'm not too concerned right now about style. Call it something close to James Joyce and "stream of consciousness" if you want.

I've decided that mysteries intrigue me. In fact, it's a hard time for me to stop thinking about them. Specifically, mysteries regarding the human psyche. For example, if a person has a legitimate reason to get out of a class, especially on test day, why not take that legitimate reason and go for it? They might want to get the test over with, in which case they put aside the excuse and just take it anyway. But that's not the mystery. The mystery in this case is that this student, while allegedly having a legitimate excuse for not attending class, made the unwise choice of simply skipping and not following proper procedure for getting excuse from the test.

This is a puzzle that defies logic. If I like ice cream, and an ice cream cone of my favorite size and flavor is offered me (and I'm hungry for ice cream), why would I deny that offer and steal the old lady's ice cream next to me instead of taking the gift? It could be chalked up to stupidity, or possible embarrassment at taking a gift, and maybe I think it's more manly to steal an ice cream cone rather than take what's offered for free.

Humans often act irrationally. That could be another explanation. This is a fact that has taken me a long time to accept, and even now it is an explanation I am reluctant to accept, except perhaps on the rarest of occasions. When I was studying history in undergrad I remember trying to reason out how people should have behaved in the past, based on the assumption that people do act rationally, will choose what's best for them if they know what it is, etc. But one of my professor's pointed out that this is not always the case. Food for thought, for sure, and I'm afraid he's right.

So irrational behavior COULD be the explanation. This is the explanation that a parent of this student has accepted. The girl just acted stupidly. She could have legitimately skipped the class, but did not.

This explanation should only be accepted if all others are exhausted. So what are other possibilities? Revisit the facts stated on ice cream. I do like ice cream. Is it possible I don't. (Very short pause.) Nope, it's true. Second thing to consider: is ice cream being offered me for free, or did I mistake the guy behind that ice cream cart, and he said "three" (dollars) instead of "free"? This should be reconsidered. Perhaps the ice cream is not free. Perhaps it really is three dollars. And I only have a dollar in my pocket. And he is not taking credit cards at his ice cream stand. So if I want ice cream but don't have the money, and then I see a little old lady walking by with a cone, and no one nearby to guard her, the temptation to steal that ice cream increases dramatically.

Translation: is it possible the alleged legitimate excuse this student had, and could have used to get out of the class, is not so legitimate after all? What's working against this conclusion? Anything?

Yes, there is. Specifically, the mother of the alleged student believes that her child did have a legitimate reason to skip class, but simply acted unwisely by not taking the correct steps.

The mystery is thus birthed. What can this mean? Who to believe? What other avenues to explore?

What reason do we have to believe the mother is correct? In her favor, she gave birth to the girl (I think). She has reason to know her very well. So it could be that we have a simple case of irrational behavior, and no lying.

Other possibilities? Yes. If the girl lies repeatedly to one authority figure (i.e., me), is there any reason to suspect she does the same with other authority figures (i.e., her mother), and maybe even tries to pit them against each other, using a web of lies and deception?

Quite possible. How can we explore this further? Are there any other sources that might be consulted on this?

There are. Leads, at least. Namely, possible witnesses who might be able to verify that said student was not in the location she claimed to be to support her story. If these witnesses can only be accessed, and convinced somehow to give an honest report about the location of the student in question, then the student can be proved to have lied once again, and confirm my suspicion that the excuse was not a legitimate one, but another lie to cover up a stack of previous lies.

Dilemma: What to do if witnesses do give evidence to "convict" this student? This would mean that not only has she lied to her teacher, but also her mother, and her mother has either bought the story, or even worse knows she is lying but mother pretends to believe her for the purpose of trying to get her off the hook? This is a tricky business. I'm not a parent, but imagine the shock of finding out that your child lied to you, you bought their story, and you defended them on the basis of this lie? Are there parents out there who have experienced this? What did you do in response? Would you want to know that your child has deceived you and you have wrongly leapt to their defense? I think I would, but I would be extremely disappointed with my child, and am not sure how I would react.

Another dilemma: if my suspicion that this is simply a web of lies is confirmed, and I am able to get a witness to tell me the truth, said witness will likely not be happy should I pass on the testimony to the student's mother. After all, they are friends, and there's a silly code among teenagers these days that says you should never say something that will get them in trouble, even if questioned and it's the truth. I guess their "friendships" get destroyed this way, which suggests to me they are not real quality friendships in the first place.

So as you can see, this is a tricky business. But it's also a fascinating one, for it is an unsolved mystery. Is this student a terrible liar? Does her mother know her very well, or has the mom been duped? Is the Mom stooping so low as to try and cover for her lying daughter? There is a possible witness. Can I convince this witness to tell me the truth? If the witness confirms the daugher has lied to her mother, do I tell the mother this? Or do I just keep my mouth shut and try to smooth things out, only playing the "ace in the hole" should the mother start to be demanding and put the blame on me for her daughter's academic troubles? I'm not interested in bearing the bad news to the mother that she has been deceived by her lying and conniving daughter (if this is the case), unless really necessary. This would not exactly be considered fun, nor part of the job description when I signed up here! However, I really do want to know for my own sake as to whether I have totally misjudged this student, and she did simply act irrationally (but not as connivingly as I have thought). That the mother seems to have bought the girl's story is an interesting twist to this continuing mystery.

Regarding getting this witness to testify to me and shed light on the mystery, there is a trump card I have to play that might help. Namely, I just caught this witness cheating again. When I confront this witness with this evidence, I may just be able to work out a "plea bargain," and squeeze the testimony out of him. One of those "shoot with me straight now and tell me the honest truth, and I might go a little more leniently on you" deals. We'll see if such "coercion" will work or not.

I'm thinking now I may be in the wrong career. Maybe criminal interrogation, or investigation, should have been my field of choice??

It's an unsolved mystery now, though I'm afraid I know what the truth is...

I Smell a Rat: Or Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark

For some reason, I continue to be amazed by what students try to get away with. Honestly, I believe they think teachers are downright stupid. Or maybe they don't think too much about the likelihood of getting caught doing something wrong. Perhaps they have an aura of invincibility about them. Maybe they're just high stakes gamblers, willing to take a risk of significant consequences to get away with missing a class or two.

My tale is true. But it baffles me why it is. The depths to which kids will go to cover their poor choices, to put it kindly, is astounding. I won't go into all the specifics for fear of compromising something or other, but this is roughly what happened...

I gave a test. On the test day, two students were absent from my class, but were present in homeroom according to the records. This usually means one of three things: the homeroom teacher made an error and marked them present when they really were absent, nowhere to be found on any part of school grounds during any part of the school day; the student was in homeroom, but missed my class for some legitimate reason, such as getting dismissed for an athletic competition, a doctor or dentist appointment, sickness, etc; or the student was in homeroom but decided to take a break from my class just because they felt like it. This last category is called "cutting class," is generally frowned upon by teachers and administrators alike, and normally results in anything from detention(s) to suspension (if it happens often enough).

What made the absence of these students more interesting was the sighting of one of them later in the same school day. This student claimed they had left to see the doctor before the test, then had returned to school after the appointment. So I checked the official record, but found there was no evidence that either this or the other student had gotten dismissed before my class. Sure looked like cutting and then lying about it to me. Both are school offenses.

The next day when the students were in class I asked them if they had documentation to explain their absence. When a student gets dismissed, they get a special form from the office with a bunch of different canned categories and boxes to be checked, depending on the reason for the dismissal (things like "doctor's appointment," "personal business," etc.) Both students produced the official documentation. This was slightly puzzling. I had expected no documentation to support a dismissal, as the official computer record had nothing on their early departure. By now I was quite suspicious. Could this actually be what it seemed to be? Somehow, could these students have gone so far as to steal this documentation?

Up for the challenge of solving a little mystery, I employed my detective skills--finely-honed, I might add, in no small part due to devouring in my youth anything and everything by Arthur Conan Doyle on Sherlock Holmes--to sniff out this mystery. I needed to be absolutely sure this was not some clerical error in the office. It could be the secretary had failed to enter the dismissal information in the system. So I trotted over to administration and broached the subject with an administrator. They promised to look into it. One of their first reactions was to think what I was thinking: this could be a crime of dastardly proportions, a forgery or theft of school documentation, which is atypical for cutting class. I mean, what student is going to take the time to try and steal or forge school documentation? Don't they have better things to do, especially if they can't even take the time to come to your class? Most students who cut may try and lie to cover their tracks. They might even forge a note from a parent to explain what was really an illegitimate absence. But it is rare indeed to have a student steal or replicate what is an official school form! This is extra dirty, to be sure.

As things developed, it seemed more and more likely that I had uncovered a forgery or theft of some kind, of the school paperwork. As I continued to think about it, I realized that previous to these two students being gone I had had a third student who was absent under similar circumstances. Attuned now to the distinct possibility that this could be a widespread problem, I checked with the office on the record of this third student's dismissal. There was no record. Another forger/thief was thus uncovered.

Due to some good work on the part of administration, they found out that this third student was the one who had scanned and reproduced the forms, then passed them on to the other two students. Can you believe it? These are students in a college track class. They are sociable, "nice" kids, as far as anyone can see on the surface. But who knows how much they have cheated to get to where they are now. Since they went the second mile to cover up their cutting class, it also wouldn't surprise me if their system of ethics has allowed for any and all cheating they can get away with. And someday they will probably get college degrees--likely also cheating their way to them--and then serve as managers and adminstrators in various white collar jobs across America, where they will boss others around and be involved in making ethical choices concerning the future of them and many others. How scary is that? Calvinists, chalk this up as one in your column to support your argument. Humans are really and utterly depraved. This kind of conniving is absolutely ridiculous.

But for now, they are busted. I have yet to learn the consequence for their actions. I only hope that it will be just, and commensurate with the seriousness of their action.