F My Life

That’s a shout-out to the infamous website www.fmylife.com that all my students love so very much.  Yesterday I had a story that should go right on there.  Except I have my own blog so I’ll post it here instead.  Of course I don’t have quite the traffic (yet) but it will suffice.

Yesterday during my off-period I had three tasks to accomplish.  1) Talk to another physics teacher about this honors research project we’re doing.  2) Finish the test for the next class.  3)  Make copies of said test.  I have plenty of time during my planning period, so this is not a problem.  However, the teacher proceeded to talk to me for an hour.  An HOUR!  To the point where I literally told him I had to leave his room to finish this test and copy it.  I run to my room, create the worksheet to go along with the test (this involved some arts-and-crafts-like cutting, taping, whiting-out, and editing) and go to copy.  I have 15 minutes now.  But making copies isn’t so bad.  Then I screwed up the first few.  Start over.  Then I get the first version of the test done.  Now the other teacher comes in and starts talking to me again.  Second version of the test in the copier.  Me: “Oh &^$*, I think I just copied the answer key into the test.  Oh, no, it’s ok.”  Bell rings, I run to my room, get the kids settled and hand out the test.  Well, what do you know?!  Version B had the answer key copied onto the back page.  I run around the room snatching tests out of the hands of the honorable students who are sitting there trying to get as many answers down as possible.  I try to find a teacher nearby to watch them (so they don’t cheat) while I go make new copies.  No one around.  I run across the hall, put the copies on, run back into my room, run back across the hall to grab the new tests and then finally hand them out.

F my life.

Cheating

There are many ways to cheat on tests.  Some time-tested ways:  sheet of paper under the desk, looking at somebody else’s paper, even the old Wonder Years baseball cap signal trick.  Then there are new ways, like text messaging answers to friends.  All of this goes on, and I’m appalled by how much cheating takes place.  No matter what I do, I can’t sit by everybody the whole test and I don’t have the room to separate them.  I can make different test versions, but I’ve found they’re smart enough to figure that out.  Imagine that…they aren’t smart enough to study for a test or to listen to me or work out a problem, but they all can figure out which version of the test they have and how it’s different from the kid sitting next to them.  Or they text their friend while I’m helping somebody.

I asked a student today who cheated and who actually did the work.  He said nobody was cheating…the girls was “just looking at my paper.”  I told him that’s cheating.  He gave me a blank stare.  Apparently nobody ever explained to a 17 year old that using somebody else’s test was cheating.  Wonderful.

Other things 17 year olds don’t know:

• Rooms are small and the teacher can hear everything that’s going on.
• If I suspect a student is cheating, they lose all benefit of the doubt on partial credit.
• I can tell when they’re texting.
• I don’t care if they copy homework or labs from somebody.  They think they’re getting away with something meaningful, but ultimately they’ll screw up the test because they don’t know the material.
• The concept of TMI.
• The more they pay attention, the faster the period will go, the better they’ll understand the material and the better they’ll do on tests.
• All they have to do is turn in they’re work and they’ll pass.