In Which Miss Jill Learns That You Are Only Cheating Yourself

We are working on preterite (past tense) right now, and I had the students do a timeline of their lives with 2040 as the end point. I was proud to receive a paper in which a student wrote: 2024-Escribí un libro (I wrote a book): “How to Cheat.” As a teacher working with diverse populations I have found that academic dishonesty is truly the universal language. I love asking students what the words in their papers mean and receiving a glazed expression in response.

When I was in high school I had this class in which our only activity was watching movies (I wish I could say film strips here, but I’m not quite that old-that was elementary) about B-list historical stars. For example, I will always remember that Charles Gaiteau is the name of the man who shot President Garfield because we enjoyed a week long documentary series about him. When it came to the final, we were at a loss, because we hadn’t learned anything and most of us only went to that class a few times a week.

Our teacher photocopied five or six different tests for us to take as the final and left them on a table in the classroom. Of course, this resulted in theft and people went home to craft and distribute answer keys on Scantron sheets. No one questioned the fidelity of the bootleg cheat sheets until it came to light that a popular one earned the cheater a 59%.

I probably copied worksheets sometimes, but I was never a huge cheater for selfish reasons. I’m pretty sure that Harvard PhDs are not the people selling term papers online (undergrads maybe) , so I don’t trust anyone to do higher quality work than mine. There was a close call, however, when I was in college. My friend had taken a class four times and was heading for a fifth because she didn’t have time to write the final paper. This is a transcript of our conversation, circa 2004:

Miss Jill: Girl, you can’t take this class again. I’m tired of this, I’m writing your final paper.
Friend: Great, it is about the history of salsa dancing.
Miss Jill: I’m not writing about that.
Friend: Well, that’s what it is about.
Miss Jill: Were you assigned that topic?
Friend: No, but I like it. We can write about whatever we want.
Miss Jill: As you will not be the person doing the paper, I don’t think that that matters. Can I do it about Che (I already had several good resources in my personal library)?
Friend: No, it has to be about salsa dancing.
Miss Jill: That does not make sense. You don’t even have to read it. I’m offering you a free paper here, and history shows that you will get an A on it.
Friend: Sorry, I’m really committed to that topic.

So BYU Honor Code Office was off the hook, because there was no way that I was doing academic research on an activity I abhor more than being weighed at a medical clinic (and that hatred earned me pneumonia once because I refused to go to the doctor because I knew that a scale would be involved).

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