The End Is Near

The end of the semester is near, and it seems to have struck people between the eyes this week. At the end of first semester, in December, I know I feel overwhelmed, too, but there is also a sense of relief that there will be a break and a chance to relax. Maybe there's also a sense of excitement, anticipation for the start of second semester. But in April, at least this year, the approaching end feels heavy and unpleasant to me.

Last week I caught two plagiarists on two different assignments. I am certain that neither of them was trying to deceive, or slip anything past me, or cut corners. They each made mistakes, unfortunately. Mistakes that they should have known better than to make and should have been able to avoid. My first reaction, was sadness. Sometimes when I catch a cheater, I do feel a little victory. Like I'm doing a good thing. In these two cases I immediately wished I could unsee the evidence and never look at it again.

The first student is having some personal problems outside of school, and maybe ze made this mistake because zir thoughts were focused on other things. Ze was upset to tears by our conversation, and after ze left my office I was not able to do any meaningful work for the rest of the day. Ze seemed to understand the problem as soon as I explained it and accepted the penalty without much comment. Since my job is to help students learn, I advised Student #1 to look over the next assignment (which had already been turned in) and make sure the same mistakes did not occur there. I allowed the student to use the weekend to check, accepting the assignment late without further penalty, because a second offense would automatically result in failing the course, and I don't want that.

The second student is typically slow to grasp things, and was slow to catch on how serious the situation could be. This student kept talking about fixing the mistake, as if ze thought I could allow a re-do to just make it all go away. Ze spent the last several days visiting various support offices on campus and revising the assignment. Today, Student #2 described all of this work to me and then stated that it should (somehow) counteract the original mistake. That I should be eager to read this work and restore the points. This demonstrates the complete misunderstanding that has taken place. Ze does not recognize the great fortune in not having already failed the course for this.

All of this takes so much energy to deal with. To be calm and professional. To remain so when the students are weeping, or being exasperating, ungrateful, or angry. Afterwards, to review these interactions repeatedly in my mind, checking whether I could have said something better or handled the situation in a different way. Only three more weeks, we say among ourselves. The end of the semester is in sight. Hold on just a little longer. We have done it before, and we will do it again.