Lying and Cheating

Yes, today was my day. In my honors class I had two homework papers that were strikingly similar, especially considering the first question was kind of easy...how many days in 9 years. Both papers had 5,600. One boy insisted he had done it on a calculator, but still couldn't explain his answer. Then I noticed the girl next to him had the same answers, too, but she had copied them sloppily - the 5,600 was 56,000. Her explanation was even more convoluted, and she couldn't recreate the math. In fact, it was kind of fun to watch her try to come up with her answer, but be unable to justify why she would add 2,800 to a number, or to multiply by 2 (well, it was even, and it was the easiest). Calls to parents were unsupportive (how do you know she cheated? How do you know she is lying? I just wanted to say "Ma'am, I am a parent and a teacher. The coincidences are too great and you child's story keeps changing"). Finally one boy admitted copying from the other. The girl stuck to her lies. Then the copier implicated one of the sweetest, quietest girls in the class, saying the boy he copied from had actually copied from her. I thought it unlikely, as she sits quite far away from these three, and the two students immediately next to them had not done their homework.

But, when I checked the quiet girl's homework, yes it had the same answers. She started crying which, surprisingly, got care and sympathy from the rest of the class, and some anger, again surprisingly, not toward me but toward the cheaters. I kept all 4 in my room at lunch and talked with them all. The quiet girl had actually mis-copied a problem, changing years to minutes, and showed her work. Finally the other boy confessed to copying.

Meanwhile in a different class, I caught a boy suspiciously writing with his book open to the answer pages in the back of the book. What a coincidence, it was the section for the homework. And he had just written 10 and 11....the homework was problems 10-20. More lying, then anger at being accused - a common tactic.

Finally, the finale, a girl from another section tore two projects off my bulletin board, and crumpled them. Witnessed by two of her teachers, but she stood in front of me and told multiple stories that didn't add up. *sigh*

On a brighter note, had a wonderful dinner for wife's birthday.