They got me, the little SOB’s got me. I went through the first week of class in a happy haze and actually heard myself say “Huh, the little mouth breathers are pretty smart this term. They are MUCH better than the last bunch last term.”
Well apparently I should have knocked on wood and thrown salt over my shoulder because the shit storm has begun. In a class of 17 I have had three papers plagiarized in two weeks (100% plagiarism too, come on at least try a little!), in a different class of 60 students about 40 of them cannot follow simple directions (i.e. turn in assignment x on this date at this location. Apparently this is too complicated and requires 60 emails looking for clarification), and in a class whose sole purpose is preparing them for job interviews and the job market at least 35% of them cannot follow instructions to turn in their resume so they can be edited and shined up so future employers have no idea how much they suck. Good luck jackasses, the job market is tough for those who do not exhibit the brain functions of a slug.
I guess the only solace I have is that I also am blessed enough to work as a lowly adjunct AND in the “real world” for a total of 80 hours a week so I can make ends meet. Wait . . .
Nail those little plagiarists' naughty bits to the wall. I hope you don't have an Incompetent Dean of Students who lets them off, like mine.
ReplyDeleteLet them get burned by the job market. If it happens enough, maybe they'll become smarter. Hope springs eternal.
Deliberate plagiarism on the first assignment is especially discouraging. You can't even tell yourself that they were overwhelmed, panicked, exhausted, etc., and so explain the bad decision. I've only experienced this situation once, and found myself wondering how in the world I was going to bear interacting with the student for the rest of the semester. Fortunately, it was still possible to drop, and she did. I think she was a bit surprised to learn that the honor proceeding would go forward nonetheless, but it did (we do, fortunately, have a pretty strong honor system -- one of many things of which I remind myself when I'm trying to recall the good things about my full-time-though-underpaid-and-non-TT appointment -- though in this case I think the only "penalty" was a notation in her file that she'd plagiarized once, which would make the penalties greater should she be caught again).
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