Textbooks

While my students were busy writing the in-class essay, I was busy looking through their textbooks to see if they had completed the activities in the sections that had been assigned since the beginning of the semester.

Collecting their books seems so elementary, it is elementary, but if I don't, they don't do the work. They pay over sixty dollars for the book, but they'd never crack it open if they were not required to do the work.

In my second class this morning, I caught a student cheating. I had randomly assigned seats so that no one was sitting right next to his or her best friend and to break apart any boyfriend/girlfriend combos. The students have almost two hours to write. Only two students were left in the classroom and both were sitting at the same desk which was in the front of the row of table-desks. I was just waiting for them to wrap-it-up when I noticed his eyes were shifting from his paper to his lap.

I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I watched for over five minutes till I was sufficiently convinced. Then I slowly stood to my feet, took two gradual steps toward the student and said politely, "You are cheating."

His black phone slid from his dark trousers to the carpeted floor. He had been reading his practice draft that he had obviously sent to his email and was reading it on his phone and then copying it to his paper. I was absolutely stunned. Later when I told someone about it, she laughed at the fact that he's spent almost two hours carefully copying it from his phone to real paper and what a waste of time those two hours had been for him.

Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol