Can You Believe It?

I am sorry to report that cheating is alive and growing. In the last two weeks I have "caught" students cheating 3 times, and I am sad to say that I have probably not caught even more.

The first time, two students came in during morning tutorials to get help with their homework. I was standing right beside them when I noticed one copying homework for another class. I asked what he/she was doing, and he/she replied that they had lost their homework, so had gone to the teacher to get another page. So I pursued it and asked if the other teacher knew he/she was copying someone else's homework. The other student jumped in and said, yes, they saw the teacher together and she said it was ok. So I said, "Then, when I email the other teacher to confirm that she gave you permission to copy homework, she will tell me that it is okay?" "Oh," the second student said. "Well, no, not exactly, but she knew we were together and that student #1 had done the homework but had lost it." So I took up both homework pages and emailed the teacher about the copying. A few days later one of the students gave me a note apologizing (that was nice) and explaining that since he/she had actually done the homework the night before, he/she felt it was okay to copy someone else's. I did not know that if you first do your homework, then it is acceptable to copy someone else's if you lose yours.


A few days later a teacher emailed me about two students in one of my classes. During her class she had taken up the homework that was being copied. So I talked to the two students, gave them zeroes, and told them I wanted a note from their parents explaining they knew why the students were receiving a zero on the assignment. One student brought the note with a request that the student not be given a zero since the homework was actually done, but perhaps could have a different punishment because said student is very naive and did not actually realize it was wrong. Second student (who I forgot to mention, talked during a quiz the same day and admitted that he/she had asked for an answer) said the note was in a binder which was, unfortunately, left at home. So , time for phone call. Parent knew nothing about either incident nor the note, but assured me it would be taken care of at home, and sure enough the note arrived the next day. Now the student hates me.

Finally, we were correcting homework, and I was giving out the answer. Towards the end, one student raised her hand and said, "What is the answer you gave to 4th period?" (This was 5th period.) I asked why. Student said, "I don't know, I was just wondering what you told the other class." Now isn't that interesting. Why would he/she even wonder if the answer was different in a previous class. Hmmm. And just before that, a student who is a regular goof off and frequently does not do homework at all, gave a completely correct, very detailed answer to one of the questions. At the time it struck me as very strange because that student does not usually do homework, much less give that kind of correct detail. At the time I wondered how that had happened. But what I can't figure out is, there is only 5 minutes between classes. How on earth did they get all the answers so fast?

Here's the irony--in all of those classes I am teaching about ethics. I was using the example in the news about the lady who gave birth to the octuplets, and how the medical world was saying it was unethical to deliberately place the mother's health and the babies' health in danger. Maybe next week we'll get a little more personal in our discussion of ethics: we'll talk about cheating.