Luckily, I Can't Kill a Student Today

Not that I would, really.  But I will take ridiculous pleasure in meeting with a certain student's parents or guardians, a guidance counselor, and an assistant principal as soon as possible to discuss the fact that this student...well, I shouldn't say bad things about students.

So we have yet another snow filled day on our hands here, and we are, unfortunately, going to make up this day by going to school on Saturday.  I've decided the only way to deal with this is to have a good attitude.  The silver lining WAS that my student teacher had already told me that if we did have to have school this weekend, he wouldn't be able to make it, meaning I would get to teach all of my classes again.

I am oddly excited about this.

Anyway, this is no longer the silver lining.  These kids are so lucky we aren't in school today because I am super angry.  And they're definitely unlucky that we will still have four days of school this week.

About a month ago, I had the students do essays on Romeo and Juliet (yes I know, a month ago.  Don't  judge me).  When we are learning to write essays, we start off with me giving them just about everything and them just filling in the examples and their own analysis.  I call them Fill in the Blank Essay Assignments.  It usually makes their grades on them better than if I just gave them the topic.  Over the course of the year, we work our way all the way down to them writing their own whole essay!  Amazing!

So I'm reading essays and they're pretty bad, so in my head as I am doing this, I am brainstorming ways to fix it this year and different things I can try next year.  I get to an essay from a child who came in for help on his essay the week before he turned it in.  What he brought to me was clearly copied directly off the internet.  I read one paragraph of his six page monstrosity (I don't give the kids page limits, but this essay should be about 2 pages) and didn't even bother with the rest.  I told him it was clear this was not his own work as it was not on topic at all and obviously not his own writing.  I refused to give him the extra credit he was looking for, went over the assignment with him again, and sent him packing with what I assumed was his tail between his legs.

As it turns out, he was not at all phased and on top of that, he thinks I am an idiot.  He turned in the exact same "essay."  I took a few minutes to look at it because anytime this happens (plagiarism, not their own work), I actually take the time to find the essay on the internet so that I can call the student's parents or guardians and have the proof that I have good reason to be giving them a zero on the assignment.

A zero on the assignment is not a good enough punishment.  I think they deserve to fail the grading period, if not the class.  In college, they kick you out.  I digress.

As I'm looking at this essay and googling sentences from it to find the source, I start realizing that he didn't use one essay, he used FOUR.  He used a whole essay for each different paragraph except for his conclusion.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  What's most ridiculous about this is that when you put them all together, they make nothing but NONSENSE.

The topic was to explain how Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy by writing one paragraph about how Juliet is heroic, one paragraph about how Romeo is heroic, and one about how fate takes control of their destinies and they can't avoid their deaths at all.  THIS IS SO NOT A HARD ASSIGNMENT.  He could have written straight crap and gotten a D.  In fact, I put a D on a straight crap paper a few minutes before reading this one.  Instead, this student's first "paragraph" is an essay from the internet about what strategies Shakespeare uses while writing his tragedy.  It's actually a good essay structurally.  It's got an intro with a thesis that states the three examples of strategies he uses that are then going to become the three body paragraphs.  And now he's got a zero.

Earlier today, I was commiserating about how being excited to have all my classes back for just one day would suggest that going to grad school for library science would really hinder my ability to teach.  Now, I am struggling with the thought that I am going to have to teach students like this for one more year before being able to go back to school to do something else.  I know I will forget all about this eventually, but things like this are a really good, quick way of hurting my feelings.  Ugh.

By the by, it's ridiculously easy to find these essays online; all you have to do is google a sort of unique sentence.  Try it.  Google "Friar John was quarantined so the letter could not reach Romeo."  The essay this student used for his first paragraph is the third hit.

Dear Whoever Did This To Me,

Whoever you are, you suck.

The powers that be cancelled school today and have already called it off for tomorrow as well. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate the unexpected days off. The problem is that someone messed up somewhere and even though we have only had 4 days off because of snow, they are already taking away our Spring Break.

Last year, we probably ended up having at least 7 or 8 days off and they never even touched Spring Break.

What happened is that for whatever reason, our school system didn't receive some "waiver" from the state that allowed us to start before August 25 or go past June 10. So we started later than normal and have to end on June 10. Our calendar for this school year already goes to June 10, so we cannot add school days to the end of the school year. Thus, good bye Spring Break, as you are the only thing they have left to use to make up days. Tomorrow will take one day from it, and any other days we miss because of weather will continue to take days until there are no more to take.

Oh wait. Spring Break isn't the only thing they have left to use to make up days. There's always all the Saturdays left in the school year!

Bite me, powers that be! Bite me!