Quick Hit and CHEATING

This will not be a long post, but I thought it funny and wanted to add it. In Wuxi, I had a friend who was in, shall we say, an explosive relationship with a Chinese girl. Generally they would be fighting all of the time, which could be funny or awkward, depending on the time and place. Anyway, one time my friend was recounting a fight they were having (I believe around Christmas time, which is the inspiration for this post). So they’re going back and forth, saying awful things to one another, and he decides to tell her that Chinese people are monster and have no soul. She promptly threw a picture frame at him and scarred his chest.

For another quick hit, as most of you know, I used to teach over in Wuxi. Generally I’d be pretty lax with my students, but i HATED when they would cheat or try to cheat. I’m not a hardass and would try and find ways for them to pass... except when it came to cheating. Through my year there, I found out that cheating is not quite the academic taboo we find here in America since no one fucking gives a shit. On their final exam in my listening class, several students showed up early for the exam. I thought nothing of this, since I was preparing their test and I know I usually show up very early for exams to settle myself in. For the exam the basic ground rule was that you could have nothing on your desk beside the test and your writing implement. I brought a towel and laid it on the floor in front of the class for any personal belongings. The students found this humorous. The towel was not mine, it was left in my apartment from the person before me.... who also decided it would be a great idea to take the mattress off its hinges and leave it on the floor. This person also quit over Chun Jie break and didn’t tell anyone. But his loss was my gain and I got his apartment. Anyway, the test begins. I have never been a proctor before and trying to keep my eye on 36 students is not easy. Luckily I am a fucking hawk.. or at least I tell myself this. Within five minutes I see a student who has some piece of paper in her eyeglass case. I take it from her immediately. She tries to protest there is nothing in there, but I’m not an idiot. I continue the test and everything seems to go well.Before the test, I had been tipped off by an anonymous student (who revealed him/herself two me several weeks later after much pleading) about a certain number of students who were planning to cheat. During the test, I found nothing. It was weird, because I expected people to cheat. So the test ends, I collect everything and go back to my office then eat lunch in the cafeteria. Due to a weird happening where a student got pulled out of the test twice (the school claimed he didn’t pay tuition and wouldn’t let him take the test, which seemed like bullshit. Take the test and throw the result out, don’t pull him from the test), I needed to go back to the testing classroom to administer the test again. After he finished, I was sitting in the class. Under the pretense of collecting candy wrappers (I gave everyone a mini Snickers before the test, which prompted most of them to throw the wrappers on the ground), I walked around the classroom and saw this:

RIGHT ON THE FUCKING DESK. ugh. Apparently some students had spoken with the class before them, found out what was on the test, and wrote the answers on their desk. Now some of these students would not have passed, BUT SEVERAL WERE TOP STUDENTS. I mean students who would have easily passed if they tried. In a class of 36, 9 blatantly cheated and I could have guessed about another 8-10 more, but had no proof.

So I spend the next day or so bitching at my friends about this and they all tell me I need to take a stand and fail them. At this point, I have already decided I’m pulled a Melo and will be one and done, so it really doesn’t matter what I do at this point, so I agree with them. But I decide failing them isn’t as much fun/foolproof if I don’t have proof... so I decide to trap them. Their listening (cheating) test was Monday. Oral test Wednesday. For their oral test, I gave them five questions to prepare, they would need to answer three at random. The first two students were clean, so no worries. The third student was their class monitor (not sure how to describe this. I guess someone who keeps the class in line and keeps attendance? I guess think of a sports team captain, some responsibility but not a huge deal). Anyway, she was a suspect. So she comes into the class and reaches for my hat, which contained the numbers of the questions. I pulled it away from her. She got confused. I asked her what she knew about students cheating on Monday’s test. She said she knew nothing. I asked her again, same response. I asked her a third time and we sat in silence for a minute. I gave her my patented piercing gaze. After the minute she said “you know about the cheating?” “o yes, I do, so you should probably tell me what you know.” She wouldn’t give up any names, but I had a head start thanks to my element of surprise (and yes, this was warfare).

So as soon as she leaves, she tells everyone outside that I know what happened and am ready to take people down. I got one person who claimed she never looked at the answers she had written in ink on her desk. Things came to a head with the last person, who asked me what would happen. I told her she was going to fail. Obviously she got upset and tried to persuade me otherwise, but I refused to even listen to other options. Only problem.... she wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. For the next several hours she was following/calling me begging for her (and not anyone else, mind you), to get a passing grade. After she annoyed me enough to want her to get the fuck away from me, I offered a retest. She had the balls to ask if she could just receive a C instead. I told her a harder test or an F and to tell the other 8 people of my decision.

Other teachers eventually find out about what happened. The same teachers who gave me virtually no support and help for the past 9 months and basically left me out to dry constantly. So they find out AND ASK WHY I DON’T JUST FAIL THEM!!! Seriously? I tried to fail 6 students the fall semester, including one student who showed up to one class (seriously, one. He showed up once in the 2nd week, skipped the midterm and took his final). I wasn’t allowed to fail any of them. I had to give out C- to all. But now suddenly when I want to fail kids there’s a hullabaloo. I was told I should not have given the retest, which made no sense. If I got in trouble for failing people the semester before, why wouldn’t I try and let people pass the 2nd semester? I legitimately had to change grades to get those first kids to pass. So I gave the 2nd test, everyone got a C- so they could pass because I stopped caring after I caught them. regardless, finding the writing on the desk was the greatest sleuthing moment of my life. They were idiots for cheating in ink. I had to laugh when I saw their shit. I mean, write in pencil or white out your answers! I would have been a much better cheater than them....

P.S. ... YES I TOOK FUCKING PICTURES!!! What, you think I'm gonna let some rat bastard cheaters dick me over and make me look like a jackass because I have no proof? I'm not Mark Furman, I'm Perry Fucking Mason getting iron clad proof.