Category Archives: Life

Whistle-blower Wednesday

Standard

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

-E.M. Forster, What I Believe and Other Essays

The idea had come to me on Wednesday morning, September 3, 2014 . As I contemplated about how I might talk to the students, I realized I would not/should not mention the word “cheating” unless and until they did. So, instead, I planned to talk to them why their answers in their test papers were exactly the same on several numbers.

That was what I did when class convened in the afternoon. I called the two students to approach me and first asked if they wanted to tell me anything about their exams. When none volunteered, I then proceeded to ask them as I had planned. Before I could finish, one finally sang. She (Yep, it was a girl) admitted she copied from the other (also a girl!). When I turned to the other girl to confirm if she knowingly allowed her classmate to copy her answers, she looked back to her other classmates before answering “Yes, ma’am. But it’s not just us who did that…” It was a teacher’s WTF moment.

I wasn’t surprised to learn that their other classmates were doing it, too. I’m not so naive as to believe that of the entire class, only two would cheat. What struck me was her defense of “everybody’s doing it”. I went on to ask her who were these others she was referring to. Again, she looked back to her classmates, who had no idea she was almost ratting them out to me. But, in the end, she kept silent and looked down to her shoes.

It was at that point that I felt conflicted. On one hand, I wanted her to come out and be honest, to tell me who these other cheaters were. But, on the other hand, I was appalled that she would actually incriminate them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone cheating. But shouldn’t there be some sort of honor among thieves? Have the youth of today been so affected by the media  and what’s going on in the government (in this country) that, at this early point in their lives, they’ve begun practicing whistle-blowing?

Idol of the masses? These whistle-blowers were named among the 2013 Filipinos of the Year by the Philippine Daily Inquirer (the nerve!!!). Obviously, that was a sad day and a very low point in Philippine history. (Photo courtesy of Philippine Daily Inquirer)

In the end, I didn’t press her to name names. I wanted her to make the choice for herself and live with its consequences. Instead, I gave the two students a choice: whether to live with their midterm exams grades, which incidentally were both failing grades (there goes the Karma), or take another exam. That was when I became even more appalled.

The almost-snitch willingly agreed to take another exam. But the one who copied boldly told me she was willing to suffer her midterm exams grade.  I was almost moved to the point of convincing her to take the special exam. But I understood what she was saying. She recognized her mistake and she was going to live with its consequences. Despite the fact that she cheated on my exams, I felt proud of her at that moment.

The Teacher Creature

Standard

Eenie minnie moe… tic tac toe… This exam is aargh!

I’ve started checking the midterm exams of my college students a couple of days ago. You see, I work as a part time instructor for a local university. I’ve been an instructor several years ago also in the same university but for a different department. I was then the strictest bitch teacher the students ever imagined. But there was a reason to my bitchiness, or so I’d like to think. I made them stick to the course syllabus. I made sure they read their cases (it was a law subject) and I made sure they knew it by heart.  They knew the consequences of coming to class unprepared. It would be like going to battle without a weapon. They would get shot down.

And so, several years later, post pregnancy and well into motherhood, I returned to teaching. This time, though, I thought about changing tactics. After all, these were college students I’d be teaching, not those hard headed law students. So, I thought to myself, I’d try being the cool teacher. The one who never put you through any kind of stress, you know. I had that kind of teacher when I was in college myself. All he did was discuss the topic, barely asking the students to recite but ably answering any questions that had been asked of him.

I know, of course, that no two teachers are alike but I did my own thing, anyway. Something like my former college professor with a slight mix of the strict bitch I was several years ago — just a smidgen though, not too much.

Anyway, like I said, I started checking the students’ papers a couple of days ago. And guess what I found? I saw two test papers containing the exact same answers to a couple of questions. And by exactly the same, I mean, EXACTLY the same.

My first reaction was to get mad. How could they do this to me? Hadn’t I been the cool kind of instructor? The one who did all the talking while all they did was sit their asses on their chairs pretending to listen to me, when in fact their minds were off on some wonderland. How dare them?! I decided I was going to confront them, lecture them and yadda, yadda, yadda. I was soo telling the Dean on them. They’ll be so damn sorry for what they did, they’ll see.

And then I thought, but does this cheating reflect on me or did it reflect on the students themselves? Was it my responsibility to guard their moral integrity?

I read about a quote somewhere on the internet about what comes out of another person’s mouth says a lot about her than it does about the person she was talking about. Doesn’t that also apply to actions? What you do to other persons reflects on your character as a person.

It was at this point that my anger simmered down. I told myself, I can only lead the horse to the water. I can try and push his head down to the water but that surely won’t make him drink, not to mention it would put unnecessary stress on both me and the horse. At this point in my life, I’m all about lessening the stress. Still, knowing that, what do I do about it? Should I tell the Dean about it? I will definitely confront these two students about what they did but is that enough to correct their behavior?

My class isn’t till Wednesday so that gives me two and a half days to decide what to do about it. In the meantime, I’ll continue checking the other test papers and hoping to the heavens I don’t catch anymore telltales of cheating.