Integrity

The new academic quarter began last week, and I once again delighted the students with my Academic Honesty speech. I've written before about my problem with various cheater-pants. I have a list of favorites: the girl who blamed her cheating on an infection she got from her Brazilian wax; the girl who said that her ovaries made her do it; and, of course, there's the student who said that she had no idea that her essay came from the internet, because she had her DAD WRITE IT FOR HER.

In response, I have developed an Academy Award-worthy performance that starts with me moving in close and lowering my voice. The various Ashleys and Brianas lean forward in anticipation. I blink rapidly as if the topic fills me with emotion. I swallow loudly. And I tell the story of a student who had BIG DREAMS to MAKE A DIFFERENCE. She WORKED SO HARD, but then one quarter she got DESPERATE. She couldn't make it all work. She was overwhelmed. She made a bad decision. She copied her paper from the internet, and she GOT CAUGHT. And it was so sad -- all her dreams were dashed, and now she's a clerk in a widget factory, earning minimum wage.

OK, I confess that this story is not really true. There are no lost dreams. No widget factory. The girl with the wax issues and the other with the ovary problems probably have more exciting and lucrative careers than I do. So, essentially, I am lying in order to describe the evils of cheating, which is problematic in so many ways.

But, whatever. Ethics are overrated.

(Note to college students out there: Read this blog entry. If you're going to cheat, you should definitely improve your skills.)

After I gave my cheating speech, I had to come home and help my third graders with their homework. No longer does homework involve sorting leaves or estimating how long it takes for an ice-cube to melt. It increasingly requires me to be a calm and persistent nag. Our afternoons go like this:

Me (with fake enthusiasm): Time for story problems! Yay!

Kid (looking briefly at worksheets): I don't get it.

Me (irritated): You haven't even tried.

Kid: But I already know I don't get it.

Me (after reading the first problem): I don't either.

Here is a version of our daily struggles:

Priscilla, Keisha, and Juan are riding on a train going south at 75 miles an hour. Priscilla is wearing a yellow sweater. Keisha is wearing a blue sweater. If the train breaks down, and everyone has to get on a Greyhound bus going north at 35 miles an hour, what color sweater will Juan be wearing when they reach their destination?

If only it were warm enough that Juan didn't need a sweater. Damn it!

But let me tell you, the math was the least of my homework issues last week. Over the past few months, Blue has been preparing a report called, "The Book of Knowledge." Sounds impressive, doesn't it? In reality, not so much. Apparently, the students had to pick a country and write 10 paragraphs about its many fine qualities. Blue chose Austria, mostly because he already did a project on Austria this year and didn't want to do any extra learning.

Just before winter break, Blue brought home his "rough draft," claiming that he was done with the paper and just needed to type it up. I gave him a congratulatory smack on the back and stopped thinking about it.

The project was due last Friday. On Wednesday, I said, "Blue, isn't it time for you to finish up that report?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get it done," he said.

I rustled up his papers and took a look. One paragraph began like this: "Austria lies at the nexus of modernity and history."

Wait.

What?

I read the paragraph again. And again. And I thought about my kid's eight year old vocabulary. It slowly dawned on me -- Blue copied this report from a book. Word for word. He PLAGIARIZED it.

Fantastic.

And now I had to give my Academic Honesty speech to my child. "Blue," I said, "Do you want to have all your dreams dashed? Do you want to work in a widget factory, earning minimum wage?" He gave me a blank look, which is essentially the same look I get from his 20-year-old cheating counterparts.

The pisser was that Blue had to re-write the whole report. Plus, he kinda forgot to mention that he needed to illustrate each fabulous page. In one day. The whole thing reminded me of that time in college where I neglected to read Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov as assigned, but then tried to consume it all in one evening in preparation for the test (Additional note to college students: That particular strategy, it turns out, is not the best way to appreciate Russian literature).

So on Thursday morning, I sent Blue off to school and started obsessing about how we were going to accomplish this task. First, I re-read this article in the New York Times and mentally prepared a letter to the district about the evils of homework for children. Then I began to bite my nails. If I got Blue to sit down and start working at 4 pm, could he get through it? Was it too early to introduce him to the concept of an all-nighter? Would that be teaching him good study skills, or would it be child abuse?

Then it occurred to me -- I had the whole day free. I could quickly rewrite Blue's Austria report in his own words...er, my own words. I could turn "majestic" into "pretty." I could turn "goods and services" into "stuff." And who would know the difference?

ACK! What was happening to me? I stopped for a moment to contemplate this story problem:

If Blue copied his paper word-for-word from a book while riding on a train going south at 75 miles an hour, and then his mother re-wrote his paper to make it seem like his, would the paper be more original or even less original by the time Blue reached his destination?

In the end, I stepped away from the abyss. I handed Blue's report, and his integrity, over to him. He worked for 5 hours. He did the illustrations, designed a cover, and signed his name by 9 p.m. His brow was sweaty, and his fingers were cramped. He said, "I think I'm ready for college."

Actually, I believe he's right.