I haven’t had anyone reading or commenting about my student stories, so I am assuming no one cares to read them or they are not interesting…sooooooo…this will be the last one of this series and I will start something new this week.

Today’s story is about two sets of students who pulled cheating scams on me.

The one set of guys were good buddies.  Out of the two, one was having problems with my Mythology class.  He convinced his friend to help him out, so they came up with this elaborate, imaginative plan:  take a cell phone picture of the test answer sheet.  That was the plan.

The helper was to keep me busy with some nonsense in my office while the guy who needed to pass the test crawled on the floor around all of the other students in the room until he was under my desk where the answer keys were kept in a large 7″ binder.  He found Mythology and the test number.  He shot the picture.  He was attempting to crawl back to his desk when I saw him on the floor.  He said he had lost some money and was looking for it.

The next day, my student asked for the test.  He took it and made 100%…which was unlike his other tests.  I took out my answer key and lo and behold!! his answers were Word for Word the same…now I always add little notes to my answers so  I WILL make sure I give a student credit even if the answer is not exactly right.  He had copied the notes down, too, in his answer.

I took the test sheet and a copy of my answer key to the office.  My boss called in the test taker.  He swore he did not cheat.  The other guy was not mentioned.  Later that day, another student who witnessed the event, told me the story or their plan.  He watched as the guy crawled under my desk to get to my answer key notebook…he knew the other guy was distracting me.

This all went to student mediation.  They wouldn’t take my word.  I had to get the witness to make a statement, also.  I was really hurt that the student government wouldn’t take my word.

Eventually, both boys finished a class and left.

The other set of scammers did a stupid thing!  I taught during the day classes and had another adjunct teach the night classes. One of my students enrolled in the night classes so he could cheat. Here’s the scam:  One of my bright students worked at the same job with the cheater. He completed my class, but before he turned in his final notebook, he loaned it to the cheater so he could see how to answer the questions and fix his notebook.  Little did he know that the cheater would copy his notebook word for word.  Well, the cheater made an A in the class. I was working the night he turned in his notebook; the other teacher was out.

The next week, my bright student turned in his notebook. While I was reading it, I knew I had read it before!  I thought about who worked at the place that was discussed in one of the questions and remembered the night student.  I pulled out his notebook, and I read it again…side by side with the bright student’s notebook.

I felt awful about not giving him a grade.  He apologized and told me that the other guy was only supposed to use it as a guide for his own.  He did not know that he rewrote the entire notebook word for word. He had to retake the class for a grade.

The other student had already had his grade recorded.

I guess this is a good lesson for cheaters/loaners of their work.  You may be the one who is caught…the other guy got off free with an A.

Blessings to you all….