Honor ? Price of Laziness ?

Recently, my school held an honor roll assembly to award students who'd "earned" at least a 3.0 gpa, an honor roll certificate. Among those "honored" was one of my students whose proud mother was there to see her receive her "Honor Roll" certificate. This mom also brought a nice bouquet of flowers to give her daughter. Mom was proud ( Gloat alert: So was I. One of my son's was one of the handful of 4.0 gpa Honors Students ! ).

Today, this "honor roll" student returned to me the form letter I sent home with her to inform her parents that she'd been caught cheating on an assignment. There she was, two days ago, hurriedly copying the answers from a Pre-Reading activity belonging to another student. Both of these students received one of my form letters to inform their parent(s) that their son/daughter had been caught cheating by (a) allowing another student to copy their work or (b) by copying the work of another student. Like too many assignments recently, this "Honor Roll" student hadn't taken the time to complete her Pre-Reading assignment. My students had some class time to work on this activity and get help from me if they needed it, then whatever they hadn't completed in class was homework. But she made the choice not to complete her assignment. Her mother signed the form letter. I asked her if her Mom said anything about it. All she said was that her mother was NOT HAPPY about this. This student showed me no remorse, nor did she share any reprocussions that have happened at home because of this. I hope she learned a lesson from this experience. Time will tell. Is she still an "Honor Roll" student ? In my mind, "NO".

Cheating is one of those things for which I just have no tolerance. As far as I am concerned, the assignment is an automatic ZERO for all parties involved, with no opportunity to make up that corrupted assignment. As far as I remember, I didn't cheat in school or anyplace else for that matter. Must be something about the values instilled in me by my parents and family. It was just not something that was done. It was a form of lying. And we were taught not to lie.

I hope she and other students that I have caught cheating so far this school year learn a lesson from it. Hopefully, that lesson is, "not to do that", not "Polski3 is a mean SOB."

How do you handle such events in your classroom ?

Thanks for reading my blog. Comments are welcome !