Archive through September 04, 2003
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TV ClubHouse: Archives: What Would You Do? : Archive through September 04, 2003

Whoami

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 03:17 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, I've debated whether to start this thread or not, cause the last thing I'd want to do is take anything away from Lori's very good Scruples thread. But, since her rules are to say either yes, no or depends...and everyone (including myself) can't seem to stick to that stipulation , I thought I'd start this thread so we can elaborate at will. Besides, I keep having these scenarios go through my head, and I'm itching to share them!

So, I'll give it a try. But if it takes away from Lori's thread, I probably won't post my second scenario.....

You are a HS science teacher. You often have students in your class several times over their tenure in HS. Becky has been in your classes before, and has always been a stellar student, usually getting A’s with ease.

Becky is now a Senior in one of your classes. As always, she has done stellar work all semester. Since she is graduating, her parents have decided to buy her a car for graduation, but only if she gets straight A’s in all her classes for her final report card.

Unfortunately, Becky is now buckling under the pressure of Finals (and thoughts of that car), and you are surprised to catch her cheating on her Final exam in your class, which is worth 50% of her final grade. What do you do?


Oh, and please feel free to submit a scenario too!

Max

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 03:39 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, I'm not a teacher or a parent, but that won't keep me from stating an opinion. LOL

The first thing to do is disregard the whole car thing. That's not part of your responsibility as a teacher and should not weigh on any decision made (same with an athlete and eligibility to play in the big game).

I don't, however, advocate simply saying "flunk her on the exam" because that's the letter of the rules. At the same time, I don't think she automatically gets a "do-over" simply because she's always been a good student, either.

In this case, the thing that would concern me would be the abrupt CHANGE in behavior.

You've stated that the pressure is what is getting to her, but do you KNOW that? I'd want to meet with her and discuss why this sudden change has occurred. Perhaps there are other problems that are causing the behavior change (divorce, abuse, drugs, etc.) and this is more a cry for help than anything else. After talking with her alone, a parent conference would probably be in order as well. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have the school counselor involved as well.

As to what to do about her cheating...I think there needs to be consequences, regardless of the reason. Given her history of good grades, perhaps a retest is in order with the understanding that she will automatically be docked a certain percentage of points for the cheating incident.

Gee, I'm more and more glad that I don't teach or have kids! :)

Whoami

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 03:49 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
You've really thought this one out Max!

This scenario was given to a class I was in when I was considering becoming a teacher. IIRC, the "car as a reward" was at the center of Becky buckling under pressure, and it was assumed (yes, assumed) she would have done just fine otherwise. She just freaked out with the "I HAVE to get an A" thought, rather than just relaxing and focusing on doing her work.

BTW, these scenarios are also open for discussion. So, if someone says something you'd like to comment on, go for it (but keep it nice). I like to provoke thought!

Remember, this is Becky's Final grade, and will stay with her forever.

One of the things we discussed in class was, grades are for measuring what you've learned. You are fairly confident that Becky knows this stuff inside and out, based on her past performance. Do you mark her for life with a bad grade, just because of one incident of handling pressure the wrong way?

Max

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 03:56 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Freaking out over the thought of a car or not a car is understandable on the part of a teenager. Consequences for freaking out and blowing it should also, IMHO, be understandable. After all, as she moves on in life, freaking out over what might happen and making mistakes in a job as a result will have consequences. Better she learn about that now and start finding ways to deal with situations than later and find herself without a job or, in a worst-case scenario, making a job-related mistake that might cause big problems for other people (such as, if she was a nurse or a doctor or a paramedic and a mistake could cost a life).

I agree that grades should measure what has been learned over the course of the class and that Becky probably DOES know this stuff. That's why I think some sort of retest, with a built-in penalty (the cost of cheating on the first one), is in order. This should cost her something, but not everything.

Again, the car doesn't figure into the equation, IMHO. That's between her and her parents and another portion of consequences she'll have to deal with. (In this situation, I'd probably assume that the parents will break down and forgive her and get her a car anyway. } :)

This is another opportunity for teaching -- in this case, it's a life lesson about handling pressure and a chance for her to learn better ways of dealing with pressure while the consequences are still relatively small. Of course, it won't SEEM small to her now, but in the larger scheme of life, it is. :)

Goddessatlaw

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 04:03 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, since I always went to Catholic schools I will presume I am a Dominican nun and handle it as was always handled in our class experiences. First, I break a yardstick over Becky's knuckles. Then I send her to Sister Mary Discipline for her spanking with a paddle while I call her parents and tell them to leave work and remove their demon seed from the premises tout de suite. Then she's off to Father Shock Therapy to confess and repent. Then I summarily expel her without appeal to a school board, but only after calling a school assembly to announce the nature of her disgrace to the entire student body so that they might learn from and avoid the same behavior. Then I convince her parents that the product of poor genetic stock they fronted as convent material would clearly only respond to a belt, and they should undertake that portion of her discipline forthwith or bring her back so Sister Mary Discipline could complete her exorcism. Then I'd flunk her for her entire senior year, and tell her good luck with the public schools because I'd make sure no parochial school in the city would venture their reputation by permitting her entry.

PS truly - when I was a senior, two chicks in our graduating class were witnessed leaving a liquor store by a nun who was driving by (and this was on their own time, not school time). Three weeks before graduation, they were summarily expelled. It was dreadfully unfair.

Max

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 04:06 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Wow! I'm sure glad I didn't go to GAL's school!!! I would have ended up in prison by those standards.

Schoolmarm

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 05:02 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Gal....I'm SO Glad that my branch of the family is Lutheran and not Catholic! ROFLMAO....

Well, folks, the academic honesty policy of the school or classroom needs to be followed. The policy I've used for forever states that confirmed cheating, plagerism or collusion results in a score of 0 for the assignment and charges of academic dishonesty. (The charges part is district policy.)

I would NEVER weigh a class so that one assignment or examination would be worth so much that the course would be failed by failing that item.

I'm a "no excuses" type of teacher. She can take the course again in the summer, if she doesn't like her grade. There are way too many people "cheating" in work or life without realizing that there are consequences to be paid. Sometimes life gives you tough lessons, but anyone who has had a lesson like that usually modifies their behavior.

Wait a minute....I'm sounding like Sister Mary Discipline here....hey, GAL, hand me the yardstick!

Goddessatlaw

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 05:11 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
GAL gently slides a metal pointer toward Marm, and tells her she should pull back as far as she can before she swings for maximum sting

Whoami

Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 08:09 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Yikes GAL!!! You are quite the disciplinarian! That is sad that those girls were expelled just for leaving a liquor store!

Marm, I like your summer course idea too. Although I also like Max's retake of the test, with a built in penalty. Perhaps there is a way to mix those resolutions?

Max, would the built in penalty allow enough room for Becky to still get an A out of the whole class, or is the A now out of the question?

When we were presented with this scenario in our class, we had to go around the room and ask what grade we would give Becky on the exam, and what final semester grade she would get. When it came to me, I don't remember what I gave Becky, but I was the only one who said "I give her parents an F." My classmates all said, "yea! I didn't think of that. The parents shouldn't have put that kind of pressure on Becky."

I've always been a firm believer that the grade belongs to the child (or whoever earns it). I remember in junior high getting four A's and 2 B's on my report card (probably the best card I ever got). It earned me a spot in the Honor Society. One snitty-snotty boy looked over my shoulder and said, "wow. How much money do you get for those? I got all A's, and I get X-amount of dollars for this report card." I told him, "not a dime. These are my grades, and I earned them for me. I would be offended if my Mom tried to buy them away from me." Never mind the fact that my mom wouldnt' have been able to afford to give me money for grades back then (she was too busy being a single mother raising 4 girls on her own).

I feel like paying money (or giving cars) for grades takes possession of that grade away from the earner, and gives it to the money giver. I understand the concept that the money is a reward for the grade. But, isn't the grade in effect supposed to be a reward for the work done? Especially when you consider my sister's friend one year, who earned mostly C's and D's, and cried and whined when her little brother got money for his good grades. So, the parents gave her money too, cause "she felt so bad." Now, what kind of value did that lay on the boy's good grades?

Midlifer

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 05:31 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I am not a teacher (though I work in a school, am married to a principal, and am the mother of a teacher), BUT.....as a parent, I have MAJOR problems with this car business! But that could lead me to a discussion about why I think this generation of kids is spoiled (including my own, although we never "gave" our children a car, they had to help finance it)...but, that's another story.....actually, another thread.

Eliz87

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 05:54 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Cheating is cheating. Regardless of her past performance, I would call her on it. The car is not the teacher's problem. It's Becky's.

Kaili

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 06:16 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I agree- I don't think that any retake of a test, at that point, should allow her an A. She screwed up and she has to face the consequences. Yeah, I agree that a test should not be weighed with so much importance that it would make you fail a class- but if a retake were even allowed, which to me would be a possibility (in a different format with different questions)- there's no way she would be getting any higher than a C. You know, too bad but she better learn that lesson before college (I assume she's going)- the consequences tend to be greater there for cheating.

I can see letting her redo it when I wouldn't let others. When I was student teaching, I never saw a kid cheat on a test, but they have HUGE plagerism tendencies. They don't even get what it is. This kid turned in this paper that said things like "according to my sources at Harvard" and "while conducting my research"- I googled line after line in that paper and found four or five websites he had cut and pasted from (it's really funny when it's so obvious that words that may have links for definitions or whatever are blue and underlined in the paper like they appear on the website- do some cleanup you lazy kids!!!!). Anyway, I printed the websites he copied it from and highlighted each part with the website and the paper- he didn't write one word of the paper. I decided it was his first offence and maybe I wasn't quite clear enough in explaining to these 10th graders what plagerism is- I gave him 2 days to redo it for a passing grade (no way was he getting an A). He turns in the EXACT same thing (more or less) a few days later. Here and there he would rearrange a sentance (He would rearrange a sentance here and there)- he replaced some stuff with stuff from a different website. Believe me- I picked that paper apart- as I did others.

He wasn't the only one who did this, but he was the worst. I did the same thing with every other kid that tried it. I made an announcement to the class about it- but I didn't name names. That guy failed anyway- I wouldn't let him redo it a third time. I have better things to do than deal with readng the same thing over and over again.

Rissa

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 06:28 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Geez Gal, I went to Catholic school too and I think a student was once given a dirty look. :)

From the scenario given, the teacher *knows* the student as more then just a name on the roster. Also, since I (as the hypothetical teacher here) have a HUGE HONKING PROBLEM with parents linking rewards to results and not effort, I would drag them in to help come up with a solution.... while making it clear that I felt 50% of the error was theirs.

** Well, actually I would play a guilt card on them..... three years of hard work, what COULD possibly have changed to cause this atypical behavior?**

In the end, if I felt there was remorse (on the student's part), I would allow a test rewrite but for reduced amount, as in the test would be marked out of a possible 75% not 100%. If she is such a stellar student then an A is still possible and her one mistake wouldn't affect her entire educational future.

Goddessatlaw

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 06:33 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Rissa, you must have had Ursulines.

Rissa

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 07:13 am EditMoveDeleteIP
LOL, nope... just a motley crew of regular ole' assorted Dominican nuns and other teachers. LOL Up here the number of Catholic schools comes close to matching the number of public schools and make up probably a third of ALL schools. Not sure what the breakdown is in the USA, but I guess we have a shortage of bad attitude types. RFLOL

PS My father was taught by Jesuits and can probably relate to your discipline tales... although in his case, he deserved whatever he got. LOL

Max

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 08:11 am EditMoveDeleteIP
No way this kid would get an A after cheating.

I agree that the 50% value of the test is excessive. However, I had plenty of classes in college where 50% of the grade was the midterm and 50% was the final, so it's not out of the question to face this type of scenario, although maybe not in high school.

Twinkie

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 01:02 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
As most of you know, my hubby is Catholic and I'm Protestant. Neither of us has gone to church in many, many years except for weddings and funerals.
Hubby went to first a Catholic school and then a Jesuit school and he says that going to a Catholic/Jesuit school will make you a very good Protestant! LOL Apparently he had a horrible experience in school. He said it was a relief to get to college. As far as a car for all A's I think that is putting too much pressure on a child and furthermore a bribe should not be an incentive for doing well in school.

I think what disturbs me most is that we have teachers on the board that are misspelling words like "offence" instead of offense and "sentance" instead of sentence.

Curiouscat

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 01:49 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I agree with Schoolmarm. I'm not a teacher but work at a college. Follow the institution's cheating policy and do not make exceptions for "good" students. I believe there's a policy at my college where an assignment or test can't be such a high percentage of a final grade in any class. I'm a "by the books" person, and think policies should already be laid out by the high school or school board so a teacher in this situation does not have to make his/her own judgement. Frankly, I question if this A student may have gotten away with cheating in the past and only got caught now. Better to learn this lesson on cheating now than later in life as others have pointed out.

Monkeyboy

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 01:53 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Gee GAL, I would have been burned at the stake had I gone to your school!

Whoami

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 03:09 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Kaili's response mentioned that no way would this kid end up with anything higher than a C. That leads me to another thought. Somewhere, someone (a college, or prospective employer) could end up seeing her transcripts, and see A's all over the board. Then this one glaring C will stand out, and she is more than likely going to be called on it.

It's also interesting that CuriosCat was the only one to question whether she may have cheated before, and this was just the first time she was caught.

I wonder what her response would be in an interview? Can't you just see the interviewer saying, "I see you have A's in all your classes in high school, except for this C in Science. What happened?"

Hey, here's an idea. Let's tweak this scenario a bit now, and say...You are Becky (or whatever the male counterpart to it would be) five years later....and you've just been asked the above question in an interview. What do you tell the interviewer?

Max

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 08:52 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
That's a good question, Whoami. I'd say that I had been distracted with senior-year social issues and other pressures and had blown a test that was worth 50% of the grade. I'd further say that it taught me a lesson about prioritizing responsibilities and being accountable for my actions and that I was glad to have had the opportunity to learn that lesson early in life. :)

Of course, this is my thinking as a 47-year-old. Who knows what I would have said at 19 or 20! LOL

Whoami

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 11:39 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Nice answer Max! I was wondering if anyone would tackle that question!

Well, let's see....shall we try a new scenario? This one's not quite as serious as the first one:

You have a five-year-old cat named Oscar that has been with you since he was a kitten. For five years, it’s been just you and Oscar, and you’ve developed a close relationship with him. Oscar trusts you completely, and you've spent many a night with Oscar curled up in your lap, and you bouncing your latest concern off his ever listening ears.

However, Oscar doesn’t get along with your new fiancé. Your fiancé never misses a chance to let you know how he/she feels about "that filthy beast," and shrinks away with open disdain whenever Oscar approaches. When your finance stayed overnight, Oscar actually peed in your finances’ shoes to show his own displeasure for your taste in human companionship.

Your fiancé has agreed to move in with you. But before he/she does, he/she has demanded you get rid of the cat. You are given the ultimatum, “its either me or the cat.” What do you do?

Squaredsc

Thursday, September 04, 2003 - 04:41 am EditMoveDeleteIP
tell the fiance to either get along with oscar or get to stepping. i actually have this problem with dh and thats all im going to say about that.

Rissa

Thursday, September 04, 2003 - 05:54 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I am with Square. It's not a matter of picking the animal over a human, because human wins. But in this case we don't have a fear factor or allergies.... we have an a**hole with attitude. LOL He doesn't have to feed it, play with it, scoop litter or take it to the vet, all he has to do is IGNORE IT. If he won't go to even that little length for something that means so much to you, then what will he be treating you like 5 years down the road?

Oh PS to the answer Max gave to part B... I agree!! Honesty is always the goal but to risk employment and potentially your entire career by sharing TOO MUCH is just silly.

Kady

Thursday, September 04, 2003 - 06:18 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I would be surprised if anyone here picks the man over Oscar.

I could understand not bringing a pet in after you were living together. But if Oscar was there first, he stays. Love me....love my cat.