I know I can't hurt them but...

[Reyneth]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't read it that there as an immediate connection between that comment to the class and ending up in prison. More that he was such a waste of humanity that he did something else so criminally stupid it ended him up in jail.

[KabeRinnaul]

But Kabe, you forget, in the original story, there was no one-on-one meeting; the teacher said this to the student in front of the class, in front of at least 20 witnesses.

I'm aware, and Broomjockey again covered half the reason for me saying what I did.

But I was more pointing that out to stress just how seriously the US public school system takes these matters - they don't have those kind of meetings simply because one student could claim a teacher said something like what that one did. Often, the claim alone will be enough to end their career, even when it's only teacher's word against student's. So when something like that is stated outright in front of an entire class? It's over.

[Jester]

Okay, now I understand what you were saying. I get it.

And I do understand that saying that would, and should, have ended that dude's career.

I just don't get him going to prison, if it was indeed for that. It just seems....extreme. I know, I know, what he did was pretty bad. I am not defending him. But if he didn't have a prior history or record with that kind of stuff (and for all I know he did), I just don't get why he ended up in the slammer.

[Broomjockey]

I just don't get why he ended up in the slammer.

Because in Canada, that would fall under "Criminal Harassment" which is punishable by up to 10 years. Saying "if he didn't have a history of it" is like saying "oh, I don't understand why that guy went to jail, it's the first time he's ever beaten a guy with a lead pipe." It's still a crime, and there's 20 people witnessed it.

[Andara Bledin]

When I caught people copying from me, I wrote wrong answers and let them turn it in first. Surprise-surprise when I get an 'A' and douche get's an F.

Nice. I like.

I did the paper-over-the-answers trick, myself.

Then again, if anyone asked me for help when it wasn't a test and didn't ask me to do their work for them, I was more than happy to help out.

[Jester]

I was more than happy to help out.

I was happy to help out in college, too....for a price.

Not on tests, but I would be lying if I said I didn't write a few small papers for some friends and dorm-mates, for money and/or beer. I never wrote major papers, I never did their research for them, and I did guarantee them at least a B (never guaranteed an A, though the papers usually got them).

Yes, I was a word whore. Yes, technically speaking it was cheating. No, I don't have any problems with my conscious. *I* wasn't cheating. They were, and I was benefitting from it, since it was rather easy for me. Sure, I could have gotten in trouble, too.....but I didn't exactly leave much of a trail.

[infinitemonkies]

I just don't get him going to prison, if it was indeed for that. It just seems....extreme. I know, I know, what he did was pretty bad. I am not defending him. But if he didn't have a prior history or record with that kind of stuff (and for all I know he did), I just don't get why he ended up in the slammer.

I glossed over part of it; when he made his threat, it wasn't it heat of the moment, 'emotion outburst' kinda threat, it was very, very specific and disturbingly detailed.

IIRC he plea-bargained down from sexual assault to verbal assault & uttering threats. Also, it seems he had a couple DUIs on his record, and a (suspended sentance) conviction for assault from before his teaching days. The judge gave him 6 or 8 months of lock-up.

[Jester]

Ah, now that explanation makes a lot more sense to me!

[taxguykarl]

When I caught people copying from me, I wrote wrong answers and let them turn it in first. Surprise-surprise when I get an 'A' and douche get's an F.

From my high school days: A history teacher suspected one loudmouth of rubber-necking on exams. So he came up with a trap: First he personally passed out each test paper (none of the usual 'take one and pass the stack on'). Then he announced, "Some of you have special instructions, look on the back of the first page of your test books." The 'special instructions were to place the answers on the next question's space (i.e. the answer for question #1 on the space for question #2 and so on--the last question's answer was to go on the space for #1). He had a smoking gun on the loudmouth.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Re: Cheating on tests.

I cheated twice in all my academic career. The first time, 7th grade vocabulary test in English class. I hadn't studied, I peeked at my study sheet in my desk on maybe four words total, and even with that help, would have flunked the test. A classmate saw me peeking, and told the teacher. I 'fessed up, admitted I'd done wrong, and took the automatic failure, since I knew I'd failed anyway.

Didn't cheat again for years until one of my classes at ITT Tech last year. The teacher had mistakenly left the answer key in about half of the tests he'd handed out. Everyone who got the key used it, myself included. If the teacher knew, he didn't mention it, and everyone who "passed" that test still had the perfect scores on it.

But otherwise, I never cheat on tests. Given every time I've tried to lie to someone, or otherwise use deception, I get caught, I figure why bother?

[Jester]

I tried to cheat exactly once in school. Latin class, freshman or sophomore year. (I know it was my first high school, because that's the only place I took Latin, but I can't remember which of the two years I was there it was.) I got caught by the teacher, and never tried such idiocy again.

[Ben_Who]

One of the lower-watt bulbs in high school wouldn't cross the street to spit on my shoes over the normal course of things, but was my bestest buddy ever when exam time rolled around, cheating so mercilessly off my work that I was stunned that no one noticed. So I told him that as long as he was going to be doing this, let's at least make it a bit more subtle. Over lunch, we meticulously worked out a series of hand signals to prevent rubbernecking. Oh, and don't forget to send a few "wrong" signals, just so that our answer sheets aren't identical.

He didn't even LOOK at the test paper. There was stuff on there that he should have gotten, but instead entrusted to me. His answer sheet was...interesting, to say the least. I felt particularly evil that day, which as we all know can be a rather pleasant sensation.

The thing about cheating is that if you're the kind of student who would cheat, it won't help you. It might get you through one test, but you can't cheat your way to a degree. I was a crappy student my first year of college, and you'd be amazed at how much information you can fit on a 3x5 card, but you can't do that with every test with every professor in every class. I'd usually chicken out, leaving the 3x5 card safely in my pocket, and the one time I drew it out, none of the material on the card was covered on the exam. Someone who doesn't listen in class isn't going to know what the exam covers. Everything to lose, nothing to gain.

I got better.

Love, Who?

[Kristev]

I tried to cheat a couple of times, in high school. Usually is was just a moment of panic, as in I'd studied all night, but when the test came, I froze and went blank and couldn't recall any of the answers until the day was over.

So I tried to cheat, and failed anyway. So I didn't try any further.

[Broomjockey]

I don't think I ever actually cheated.

I did once let someone else copy off my homework, they weren't subtle enough about it, or something, homeroom teacher nailed us, and *I* got detention. That's right. Me. Not them. 'cause, I was an enabler, and without me, they wouldn't have done anything wrong.

I'll also admit that I'd been tempted to cheat, when stuck on individual questions, and I'd even look about the room, desperately hoping for inspiration to strike. Lucky for me, though, my eyesight sucks so I couldn't ever actually see anyone else's work

[Jester]

I told him that as long as he was going to be doing this, let's at least make it a bit more subtle. Over lunch, we meticulously worked out a series of hand signals to prevent rubbernecking.

I felt particularly evil that day...

I'm a bit confused. Did you screw the guy over, or actually help him to cheat off of you. If it was the former, bravo! And if it was the latter, what, precisely, did you get out of it?

The thing about cheating is that if you're the kind of student who would cheat, it won't help you.

A point illustrated by my high school chemistry teacher, "Big Mike." Big Mike was a hilarious teacher who spent half the class teaching us chem and the other half just bullshitting with us. The very first day of class, though, he told us that in his 20 some years of teaching, no one had ever gotten a perfect score on any of his tests. This was a point of pride with him. He graded on a curve, so it was not as if he was out to make people fail....he just liked to challenge the students.

The amusing part of his tests were that we were allowed to use anything written on our book covers. Any of you remember buying/making covers for your books in high school? Yep. We did. And he was not kidding....you were allowed to use anything that was written on those covers for the test. And most of the students changed their covers each chapter, so they would have fresh stuff written on the covers for the tests. One enterprising soul went so far once as to copy the entire chapter on a photocopier and shrink it down to put on his book cover. And for the final we were allowed to bring ALL our book covers from the year to help us. And Big Mike allowed all this.

Why? Because he knew what we young lemmings did not: that it really wouldn't help. You either knew the material or you didn't. I can say from my experience that the book cover "help" really wasn't. Other than the one chapter that was about memorizing formulas, it was a big waste of time, a red herring that he threw us. Because you would spend your time looking for the answer on your book cover when the fact remained that if you didn't know it, you weren't going to have enough time to find it and finish the test if you relied on the book cover.

Big Mike was evil. But he also had a generous (though twisted) side. After each exam, for those who were not happy with their grade, he allowed them a blind do-over. To wit, if they chose to do this, they could fill out the answer sheet again....without the question sheet. It sounds funny, but more than a few people did this, and more than a few actually improved their grade by doing this, by just randomly picking answers.

As it turns out, I came closer than almost anyone in his history (at the time) to getting a perfect grade on a test. I was rather proud of that, being one of only two sophomores in a junior class. Hell, throughout the year, without fail, myself or the other sophomore would get the best grade on the test, with the other one being second. It kind of irritated the juniors, but the fact is, we were in that junior class because we were motivated and smart enough to do it.

So, how tough was Big Mike, really? On the final exam, the other sophomore got only 33 of 75 questions right. I got 50 out of 75. And those were the two best scores in the class.

Big Mike was so tough that 20+ years later, I still tell this story. And I still admire the man. If ever I became a teacher, he would be one of the ones I would want to be like.

Big Mike rocked. And he proved that those who cheat rarely are helped by the cheating.