Why Do Students Have to Cheat?
I'm so irritated/disappointed right now. I caught some of my favorite (most of my them are "favorites," so this is somewhat of a meaningless adjective, but useful anyway to qualify my pain) students cheating on a homework assignment today. I usually don't collect it, but did today, and found some more than coincidental identical answers on a portion of homework that should not have had identical answers. To put it another way, the odds of eight answers being virtually identical, even down to the slight modifications they made from the original text, are about as condemning as you can get (this was true in one case; in another case one student confessed, which made determining guilt easier).
I'm also irritated because I think I falsely accused one pair of students about cheating. I thought I picked up on it during class, confronted them at the end of class, and they denied it. I reexamined it, and though it is still fishy I am not 100 percent sure they did (this case is different from two other cases, which are slam dunk cheating). So now I'll have to sort out talking to the guilty parties and the perhaps not guilty parties tomorrow. Sigh. The sad thing is I know that I only catch probably 1 percent of the cheating that goes on. So when that 1 percent is caught, it really should not be overlooked. It doesn't make sense to just say "It's ok this time, but don't let me catch you again" when they will be able to cheat another 99 times before I do catch them again. What kind of message does that send? So I have to deal with what I've caught as a significant deal, with students I would naturally speaking like to get along with well. Do parents wonder if their children will ever love them again when they discipline them? Any parents out there feel free to chime in on this. If so, I'm feeling like a parent. But not like God. I don't think God is afraid His children won't love them again when He disciplines!
I'm also disturbed because I think most students tend to vehemently deny it when they are confronted with cheating. So I am faced with the prospect tomorrow that when I talk to several students each of them will deny it, which hurts even more when there is such overwhelming evidence and you like to think that your relationship with students is such that they don't lie to you every other minute. Maybe you can pray that confessions will occur and that repentance will be genuine. And that I'll have the grace to apologize to any I wrongly accused today...
I'm also irritated because I think I falsely accused one pair of students about cheating. I thought I picked up on it during class, confronted them at the end of class, and they denied it. I reexamined it, and though it is still fishy I am not 100 percent sure they did (this case is different from two other cases, which are slam dunk cheating). So now I'll have to sort out talking to the guilty parties and the perhaps not guilty parties tomorrow. Sigh. The sad thing is I know that I only catch probably 1 percent of the cheating that goes on. So when that 1 percent is caught, it really should not be overlooked. It doesn't make sense to just say "It's ok this time, but don't let me catch you again" when they will be able to cheat another 99 times before I do catch them again. What kind of message does that send? So I have to deal with what I've caught as a significant deal, with students I would naturally speaking like to get along with well. Do parents wonder if their children will ever love them again when they discipline them? Any parents out there feel free to chime in on this. If so, I'm feeling like a parent. But not like God. I don't think God is afraid His children won't love them again when He disciplines!
I'm also disturbed because I think most students tend to vehemently deny it when they are confronted with cheating. So I am faced with the prospect tomorrow that when I talk to several students each of them will deny it, which hurts even more when there is such overwhelming evidence and you like to think that your relationship with students is such that they don't lie to you every other minute. Maybe you can pray that confessions will occur and that repentance will be genuine. And that I'll have the grace to apologize to any I wrongly accused today...
posted by redsoxwinthisyear at 5:56 PM
2 Comments:
So how did it go?
I ate some humble pie and apologized to the pair I am not sure cheated. It was good because I think I had ruffled some feathers, so things were smoothed over by my apology. I confronted the others and they basically admitted to it. I don't know whether they have really repented, but I guess I can't worry too much about that. I just give them the consequence of their action.
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