Cheating students

[Chicory Blue]

Can I vent?

I'm grading my high school students' unit projects today- They had four days to write me a Shakespearean sonnet, tailored to a few specifications including labeling instances of imagery and figurative language.

Now, I'm used to catching cheaters. Every project has one or two knuckleheads who copy and paste an essay directly from online, and it isn't hard to spot the signs, but I'm not even a third of the way through my class roster and I've already caught 11 kids who just genuinely could not be bothered to do the work.

The more clever cheaters ripped their sonnets from a website for teens to post poetry on, so at least it comes close to resembling their actual skill level. One submitted me an honest to goodness Robert Frost poem, and I feel like I should be taking something for my blood pressure right now.

However, the bigger half of these little turdgoblins employed an online app that generates Shakespearean sonnets like a Mad Lib. You just enter your favorite animal and a few descriptive words, and it spits out a sonnet- always the same sonnet for the most part, mind you, which is how I ended up catching them.

I understand a lot of you are or have been teachers, that most of you have had children, and that nearly all of you have at some point in your lives been a high school student. Meanwhile, I've only been at this game for about a year and a half now, am not yet old enough to be my students' mother, and am presently stuck in a decidedly rural area where seniors writing essays need to be reminded that the past tense of "see" is "saw," not "seen" or "seent," so I don't know if I should be as surprised or hurt by this as I am, but so far this is the worst instance of mass-scale don't-give-a-damn I've encountered among my students, and I'm just kind of reeling right now.

I've still got four more class periods to grade before I'm done, and if this pattern keeps up, I'm about to have to send around thirty students to the principal's office tomorrow, out of a roster of about 120.

I know they're teenagers. I know they don't care about poetry, and that they aren't going to make an honest effort at something that isn't important to them. I know that as a teacher it's on me to make the material more engaging and appealing and to help them understand why it's relevant. I get that, I really do, and god but I've been trying to show them how personal and powerful a tool for self-expression it can be, but what kills me isn't that they don't care.

It's that they think I'm so stupid that I'd let them pass an entire unit project when all of their friends' poems are literally identical except for the nouns. It's that the next generation of my country is genuinely dull enough to think they can get away with that.

I'm hurt and I'm scared and I'm so, so tired and I still have so many papers left to grade.

Just had to take a break from the pen for a moment to say that.
Thanks for hearing me.

--^@

 

[dreamadream99]

Shortcuts. They’re all the rage.

 

[charlie monroe]

I wouldn’t take them to the principal.

I would humiliate them. Call all of them to the front of the class and ask them each, in turn, about their inspiration for writing their poem.

I would then offer them an opportunity to actually write a poem by end of school Friday or something.

 

[MJ5150]

I would share your exasperation.

-Mike

 

[Alkali Ike]

Explain it to them kind of like you did here. Don’t call out anyone specifically but make it clear you know what some of them did. Then reject the entire lot and tell them you’re generously giving everyone including the unnamed slackers a chance to resubmit and make it right.

I could never do your job.

 

[yodedude2]

welcome to the world of public education, where the points are made up and the scores don't matter! (pardon my facetiousness)

1. parents cheat. their kids cheat. rinse and repeat.
2. if you want to get ahead in business, you need to learn how to cheat successfully.
3. i don't think the population is any duller. they are as dull as they ever were. compulsory education and a half-hearted attempt to level the educational playing field has made it more visible, methinks. much of the populace sees little value in a formal education; consider the great distrust by student's peers of the intellectually gifted.

 

[Chicory Blue]

I wouldn’t take them to the principal.

I would humiliate them. Call all of them to the front of the class and ask them each, in turn, about their inspiration for writing their poem.

I would then offer them an opportunity to actually write a poem by end of school Friday or something.

Our school policy isn't too different from that. Academic dishonesty means a trip to the principal, a detention, a zero on the assignment, and the opportunity to do an alternate assignment to make it up for no more than a 70.

As for humiliating them, I'm torn between whether I'm that petty (hell, ok, I definitely am) and whether that sort of treatment is better or worse for them overall (I could go either way here.) One thing's for sure- it would at least be fun as hell, letting the ones who used the app recite their poem one after another as it dawns on the class that they're all identical.

I had a similar thought, though perhaps less public-shame oriented, in which tomorrow I offer to show them all "my favorite Robert Frost poem," and recite the one that was plagiarized as though it was the very dearest thing to my heart, all while watching the offending student sweat at his table as he realized he just effed up in the worst of ways.

But then, I feel like indulging in actual sadistic joy against somebody I am employed to nurture may not be the most ethical way to handle this situation. ... Unless it actually works, in which case it is by definition the most ethical thing I can do as a teacher.

I'm too green to know.

--^@

 

[buldog5151bass]

I would explain to them that the point is to try, and while you don't expect them all to like it, you expect them to make the effort. Maybe explain briefly how you got inspired to enjoy English lit. Then tell them you know for a fact (and have proof) that at least x number didn't even try, and you have no choice but to report them. If they want to confess and try for real, you still have to report them, but Will let the powers that be know that at least they fessed up.

 

[charlie monroe]

Perhaps my use of the word humiliate is a little strong. Another way to look at it is facing the music.

Since you are new, the best course is likely following policy to the letter of the law.

 

[Gorn]

Children are the future and the future looks bad.

 

[charlie monroe]

Btw, I thought this thread was going to be about $100k in tuition for degrees in unemployable disciplines

 

[two fingers]

Welp, here's the thing. It's been quite the topic this week, but an absolute abhorrence for ANY conflict whatsoever has made even PARENS big fat slobbering wimps.

When I was in school, I knew the deal. If I got in trouble in school, I was in DOUBLE trouble when I got home. My parents didn't abuse me. But they held me to VERY high standards.

These days, if a kid gets in trouble, parents fire off an email to school administrators (because a face-to-face conversation... or even the thought of one....makes them break out in a rash).

Short version: The kids need consequences. They aren't getting them at home because their parent grew up as weenies too.

They need to redo the assignment, only this time write 6 poems. And if they do all six without cheating they can earn a C rather than a zero on the assignment.

God bless you for being a teacher. My dream job would have been to teach US history. But I knew I couldn't do it without the use of brute force and violence.

 

[Alkali Ike]

Also, if you give them a do-over, make it clear this is the one and only time you will ever do that.

I do kind of like the idea of reading some of the worst submissions out loud but without attribution.

 

[Oddly]

While I love Mister Monroe's public shaming idea, and would personally probably go that route, I have to admit Olddog's is probably the best policy.
For one thing, publicly humiliating them might get you shot, being in Texas.

I've also nothing but admiration for teachers who care.
Like @two fingers, I'd have loved to be a teacher.
The year I would have started teacher training, however, the Irish government banned corporal punishment (and, typically, didn't bother about thinking up any sort of alternative).
I knew that was it for me.
If I hadn't the option of beating education, discipline and manners into their thick skulls, why bother?

I will admit to some sympathy for the students on one point...Shakespeare and his bloody sonnets? Why are they still being inflicted on kids? Why not use Dylan's lyrics, or Taylor Swifts'?

 

[bajaandy]

I hear you sister! And I feel your pain. I started year 29 this year as a high school shop and drafting teacher. Now granted, it's a hell of lot harder to cheat in shop class (when I'm actually watching them build their projects), but the darlings always try to get away with it in my Engineering and Design class (which is mostly CAD). I love it when they turn in assignments that quiet obviously are EXACTLY the same, right down to the wrong line types and misplaced dimensions. I always chide them to at least make some sort of an attempt to pull the wool over my eyes by making just a few edits, other than simply changing their name. Then I give them both a zero on the assignment.

But what to do? I think honesty is the best policy here. Tell them you know what they did. Throw out the whole lot and tell them that as a courtesy you're allowing a redo. If they do it again (and many will), then throw the book at them. Maybe invite an administrator to the class to give them a talk, en masse, as it were.

The root of the problem was alluded to in an earlier post. No consequences. Kid's simply aren't held to the same standards anymore. Not by schools or teachers or parents. It's an uphill battle. But it is a battle worth fighting! Keep with it! Even if you only get through to one or two kids, that's better than none at all. (And the truth is you're getting through to more of them than you know.)

p.s. I love your Ray in your avatar. I just got one last month and I'm in love!
p.p.s. Can I share your rant with my English teacher friend?

 

[Chicory Blue]

welcome to the world of public education, where the points are made up and the scores don't matter! (pardon my facetiousness)

1. parents cheat. their kids cheat. rinse and repeat.
2. if you want to get ahead in business, you need to learn how to cheat successfully.
3. i don't think the population is any duller. they are as dull as they ever were. compulsory education and a half-hearted attempt to level the educational playing field has made it more visible, methinks. much of the populace sees little value in a formal education; consider the great distrust by student's peers of the intellectually gifted.

I mostly agree.

I'm usually pretty open with my students about this, in fact- My job, I tell them, is at its core to teach them skills to advance in life and avoid making the kind of critical mistakes that will hinder their chances. When I bust them for vaping, it isn't because I have any intention to police their personal health habits- it's that I take umbrage with the fact that they were foolhardy enough to do it in a place where there was risk of getting caught, or that they had little enough respect for me to attempt it under my watch.

So it goes with cheating- if they can hand me a piece of paper that thoroughly convinces me that they understand the material, then perfect. That kind of creative thinking will get them far in life, but if all I have to do to determine that they cheated is enter the first few lines of their essay into the Google search bar and the rest of it comes right up, or if they copied off a friend and then turned their papers in at the same time so that two identical worksheets are directly next to each other in my grading stack, then they deserve the full force of whatever wrath I visit upon them.

Stupid is as stupid does. I will never punish my students for not being as intellectually gifted as their peers, but I will punish the everloving crap out of them for making stupid choice.

Welp, here's the thing. It's been quite the topic this week, but an absolute abhorrence for ANY conflict whatsoever has made even PARENS big fat slobbering wimps.

When I was in school, I knew the deal. If I got in trouble in school, I was in DOUBLE trouble when I got home. My parents didn't abuse me. But they held me to VERY high standards.

These days, if a kid gets in trouble, parents fire off an email to school administrators (because a face-to-face conversation... or even the thought of one....makes them break out in a rash).

Short version: The kids need consequences. They aren't getting them at home because their parent grew up as weenies too.

They need to redo the assignment, only this time write 6 poems. And if they do all six without cheating they can earn a C rather than a zero on the assignment.

God bless you for being a teacher. My dream job would have been to teach US history. But I knew I couldn't do it without the use of brute force and violence.

You and I are in near-perfect harmony here. Any discipline I received at school meant nothing to me besides the signal to my parents, who would supply the real consequences. As such, I was the most straight-laced person I knew, and my teachers loved me, because at the end of the day all I really wanted was to play video games and if I stepped out of line in the slightest I could kiss those goodbye for a week.

Parents expecting teachers to be their childrens' disciplinarians on top of being their tutors and then taking offense when heaven forbid we actually do that is doing a whole lot to make the climate of public education pretty terrible.

The only thing I'd change is giving the kid six assignments in place of one. That's setting him up to fail while cementing his hatred of the thing I genuinely want him to realize he's capable of. There are a lot of reasons for a student not to care about something, but on the off-chance that it's because he feels like the work is beyond his ability, which I can say is likely the case for at least one or two of the fifteen (and counting) I've caught so far, giving him an even bigger dragon to cower from isn't going to help him.

I'd leave it at just making him redo the one, so I can at least send the message that there's no running away from this problem, but that doing it was something he *could* have done all along. Maybe one plus an additional supplementary assignment, so it still rings true that trying to dodge his responsibility only made the problem worse, but not so much worse that he just chooses to to take the zero. I want to press them just hard enough that they struggle to save themselves, not so hard that they give up. I suppose that's every teacher's goal, even if it's completely unrealistic and they don't begin to pay us enough to get it right every time. But it's nice to dream.

While I love Mister Monroe's public shaming idea, and would personally probably go that route, I have to admit Olddog's is probably the best policy.
For one thing, publicly humiliating them might get you shot, being in Texas.

I've also nothing but admiration for teachers who care.
Like @two fingers, I'd have loved to be a teacher.
The year I would have started teacher training, however, the Irish government banned corporal punishment (and, typically, didn't bother about thinking up any sort of alternative).
I knew that was it for me.
If I hadn't the option of beating education, discipline and manners into their thick skulls, why bother?

I will admit to some sympathy for the students on one point...Shakespeare and his bloody sonnets? Why are they still being inflicted on kids? Why not use Dylan's lyrics, or Taylor Swifts'?

Yeah, I really don't agree with Billy Shakes having the darnedest thing to do with advancing a student's communication skills besides improving their ability to recognize artists' influences on culture and mayyybe challenging them to decode less-than-direct language.

When I teach the poetry unit, I put the spotlight on the nature of using words to create feelings, which I do feel is relevant, and I justify teaching them specific formulas of poetry such as limericks and sonnets by pointing out how many of their favorite songs manage to reach the tops of the charts by following a tried-and-true formula. It's actually my favorite thing I do all year- showing them Axis of Awesome's four chord song medley to illustrate just how much creativity you can cram into a little box. The sonnet project, I tell them, isn't about saluting how glorious the almighty sonnet is, but rather an exercise in turning a preexisting formula into something personal, like how everyone on tiktok lip syncs to the same song, but the way they present it creatively and make it their own is what makes them so great to watch.

At that point, the kids promptly forget everything I said just to show me their favorite tiktoks.

I miss delivering pizza.

--^@

 

[Chicory Blue]

I hear you sister! And I feel your pain. I started year 29 this year as a high school shop and drafting teacher. Now granted, it's a hell of lot harder to cheat in shop class (when I'm actually watching them build their projects), but the darlings always try to get away with it in my Engineering and Design class (which is mostly CAD). I love it when they turn in assignments that quiet obviously are EXACTLY the same, right down to the wrong line types and misplaced dimensions. I always chide them to at least make some sort of an attempt to pull the wool over my eyes by making just a few edits, other than simply changing their name. Then I give them both a zero on the assignment.

But what to do? I think honesty is the best policy here. Tell them you know what they did. Throw out the whole lot and tell them that as a courtesy you're allowing a redo. If they do it again (and many will), then throw the book at them. Maybe invite an administrator to the class to give them a talk, en masse, as it were.

The root of the problem was alluded to in an earlier post. No consequences. Kid's simply aren't held to the same standards anymore. Not by schools or teachers or parents. It's an uphill battle. But it is a battle worth fighting! Keep with it! Even if you only get through to one or two kids, that's better than none at all. (And the truth is you're getting through to more of them than you know.)

p.s. I love your Ray in your avatar. I just got one last month and I'm in love!
p.p.s. Can I share your rant with my English teacher friend?

Thank you. In all this stress, I often forget how much joy she brings me, sitting patiently in her gig bag while I give myself carpal tunnel without even needing to use an instrument.

Share as much as you like!

--^@

 

[yodedude2]

cb, if you can make it past the first 5 years, you will be a great teacher.

 

[bholder]

"Turdgoblins". Worth the price of admission just for that. But I feel your pain.

 

[DirtDog]

My wife is a teacher (27 years and counting) and I hear all about these "teachable moments". Is there a way to get your point across AND turn it into a teachable moment - without getting yourself into any ethical hot water?

Like, take a few samples of the plagiarized/lazy work and let the class critique why they thought it was honestly come by or not. Make it a study of why plagiarism is not acceptable or something like that? Without naming names, maybe compare a non-plagiarized submission against a plagiarized submission and teach the class how a teacher can tell the difference? That kind of lesson might stick for those kids on the borderline.