Stupid students who dont know they are stupid

[cards2468]

I never copied and I graduated.

So at least a single student did graduate.

You never once worked with another student and said, "You do problems 1 and 3 and I'll do 2 and 4"?

I'm not here to talk about the past.

I'll be Jose Canseco and say that myself and everybody else cheated at some point. When do I get my MTV reality show?

[sighyoung]

Well, now I've got a student complaining about me to the chair of the department. The student and I had a big disagreement about her mid-term exam. For the essay portion, I instructed students to write about "three authors and an assigned work or set of works by each author." She seems to have only read a few works this semester, because she chose to write about a writer who was not on the syllabus, and so there was no assigned text by him that was eligible for the exam. Mind you, students had essay questions a week in advance, and could bring in an outline of what they wanted to write.

The student argued that she could write about any author that she pleased, and that I was obligated to accept whatever she wrote. I kept pointing out the wording on the exam, and even offered to give her credit just this once while pointing out her deliberate ignoring of instructions, but she repeatedly insisted that I was at fault, and that I had to accept the answer no matter what. "You said three authors!" "No, I said assigned works by three authors." "No, you said three authors!" "No, the instructions are clear, and I repeated them in class." "No, you said three authors! You have to accept my answer!" I finally repeated, "No" several times in a row, to which she accused me of being childish, unprofessional, whiny about a silly exam--all while being disrespectful and verbally abusive.

I told her that she should feel free to appeal to the chair. That is where this stands.

I have never had a student so flagrantly lie about the instructions on an exam, or turn on me in this way. Nothing may result from this, but she's a piece of work. She already has alerted me that she will not attend class tomorrow.

[sighyoung]

She then starts crying and says if she gets a bad grade she wont get into law school and that it is my fault as her professor if she doesn't get in.

At this point I let her know that the plagiarism report is going forward, tell her the rights she has a student, and ask her to leave my office. She gets up and slams my office door. I go to the dean and tell him what happened.

In the two days since this happened she has now written multiple poorly worded emails to people on campus about what a mean [expletive] I am because I cannot teach.

I do appreciate that she's taken forty-odd classes at the university, but you're the make-or-break professor.

I also believe that nothing kills fungus better than sunshine. I doubt you're the first teacher to experience this from her, and the more people see and hear her, the worse she looks.

Most such people make a lot of noise, then go quietly into that good night.

[a_smith]

Well, now I've got a student complaining about me to the chair of the department. The student and I had a big disagreement about her mid-term exam. For the essay portion, I instructed students to write about "three authors and an assigned work or set of works by each author." She seems to have only read a few works this semester, because she chose to write about a writer who was not on the syllabus, and so there was no assigned text by him that was eligible for the exam. Mind you, students had essay questions a week in advance, and could bring in an outline of what they wanted to write.

The student argued that she could write about any author that she pleased, and that I was obligated to accept whatever she wrote. I kept pointing out the wording on the exam, and even offered to give her credit just this once while pointing out her deliberate ignoring of instructions, but she repeatedly insisted that I was at fault, and that I had to accept the answer no matter what. "You said three authors!" "No, I said assigned works by three authors." "No, you said three authors!" "No, the instructions are clear, and I repeated them in class." "No, you said three authors! You have to accept my answer!" I finally repeated, "No" several times in a row, to which she accused me of being childish, unprofessional, whiny about a silly exam--all while being disrespectful and verbally abusive.

I told her that she should feel free to appeal to the chair. That is where this stands.

I have never had a student so flagrantly lie about the instructions on an exam, or turn on me in this way. Nothing may result from this, but she's a piece of work. She already has alerted me that she will not attend class tomorrow.

That turning breaks my heart every time. Moving from we are collaborators in the shared experience of uncovering the amazing truths of the world to we are adversaries is wrenching for me.

I cannot believe that she wasn't self interested enough to accept the credit that you were offering her. I love the hubris of saying you are being unprofessional when she willfully ignores her responsibilities as a student. But of course I am sure that her ears have never been sullied with the letter no.

Perhaps this might help

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[a_smith]

I also believe that nothing kills fungus better than sunshine.

I think I just found the line I will lead with on my Philosophy of Teaching for my tenure packet.
I would cite you of course. I could break new ground of research by footnoting GRB.

I hope that most of your students appreciate your wit.

[obucard]

I never copied and I graduated.

So at least a single student did graduate.

You never once worked with another student and said, "You do problems 1 and 3 and I'll do 2 and 4"?

I never thought to do that.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

I have never had a student so flagrantly lie about the instructions on an exam, or turn on me in this way. Nothing may result from this, but she's a piece of work. She already has alerted me that she will not attend class tomorrow.

I hope your chair backs you up. They have to to maintain any kind of standards and discipline. As to her alert, I'd respond "Thank you."

[AdmiralKird]

I didn't cheat at all in college. Didn't take aderall to study either. I copied others work for AP Chem and math classes in High School like crazy though.

[a_smith]

Just to add to the absurdity of this semester

1) I offered a review session for the students for an exam. This is out of the goodness of my heart in order to help stressed freshman do better. I spend several hours in the evening answering the questions that I have already answered in class, but will answer again to make them feel better. I don't mind it. Kinda fun in a way.

One student told me that she couldn't attend the review session and asked me to move it to a different day so that she could attend. I respond, no.
Then she asked me to take notes for her. I said, no, you can ask another student to do that. She doesn't know anyone in class she says.

She then asked if I would just be able to remember the material discussed, write that out for her, and send it to her as an email.
I respond, 'No, why don't you just come to my office hours and I can answer any question that you have in person.' She then said she was busy and couldn't come to my office.
I just looked at her in disbelief. I have no idea what to say. I will just wait her out.

After a long awkward pause where I was trying not to laugh at her. she then asks,are you going to take notes for me? No.
She yells 'FINE!!!! YOU ARE MEAN.' Walks out the class and slams the door behind

2) I just found another student who plagiarized. Not a bad thing. BUT SWEET [expletive] JESUS. She plagiarized ME. She found an article that related to her paper topic. Somehow she ignored that it had the same name as the guy teaching the class and that was talking about some of the same ideas we discussed in class, and handed that in as her work.
She denied that it was plagiarized and said that she wrote it.

Lol. Really? It was part of my dissertation. I have, oh just about 20 drafts of that going from proposal to finished. Then more drafts as I polished it up for publication. Then I have the offprints from where it was published. I have a goddamned copyright and a library of congress number.

I cannot wait to fill out the paperwork on this one. I might just print out my dissertation and add that to the file to give it some real heft.

[cards2468]

Jesus Christ man. Out of the 4 years undergrad I spent and a year in grad school, I have never experienced having peers that are as big of pieces of [expletive] as what you guys deal with.