Liar! Liar! · Mon Jan 8, 17:51 by Eleri Straker
Term has begun. In the same way that it finished. With Princess opening her big mouth. Again.
My first lesson of the term was with my year 11 class with Princess back on the throne. In order to force the class to face up to the fact that many of them are very short on course work I got them to sort out their work folders and to list and tick off completed work. It had the desired effect and panic reigned.
The amusing bit though was Princess’ reaction. She claimed boldly that she had four complete pieces. When I pointed out that this, in fact, was not the case she reminded me of the pieces she’d handed in before she had been excluded (mentioned in ‘Same old, same old’).
When I reminded her that we’d already discussed the fact that her work was plagiarised…she admitted that one was (well, it’s a start), but the other one was her own. So I told her that I’d found the site that she’d used and she told me that I couldn’t have. I asked her if she was calling me a liar and she said that Yes! She was!
I stayed very calm and told her exactly what she had done: found a website, down loaded bits of it, then changed the occasional word. I explained that if I could identify the site, it hadn’t been altered enough and was therefore unacceptable and still plagiarism.
She tossed her head then and said that she expected me now to help her write the coursework! So I calmly pointed out that not only had she not written anything with which I could help her, she had also publicly called me a liar…in front of the whole class. Her response was a shrug and “So?”
I had told the class that after Christmas I would spend time after school with students who wanted to raise their grades. Quite a few were keen to take me up on my offer as they have realised that they need to if they are to pass their exams in the summer. The only condition I placed on this was that the students had to have completed the pieces they wanted improved and that I’d already marked them and given them a provisional grade. I explained that as I had already taught the various texts and had no intention of doing it again, my purpose was to help those willing to work. Seemed reasonable to me and the rest of the class. But not to Princess. Her idea of ‘help’ is for me to do the work and for her to claim it as all her own.
When her friend said that she needed to improve her essay on Sherlock Holmes, Princess declared airily that she hadn’t read the book (or any other book we’ve studied). So I suggested that a good starting point might be for her to spend the weekend reading it. She told me that she had a life and was too busy.
Today was my first after school tutorial sessions. Guess who didn’t turn up.
