C.A.P.A

C.A.P.A stands for Cheaters And Plagiarizers Anonymous, a club I think a few students could easily belong to. Although... some of them aren't so anonymous.

Its kind of like taking a picture using the manual focus. The subject is extremely blurry and then you turn the focus and BAM! everything is clear. It had been mentioned to me that someone was cheating quite a bit but I couldn't do much about it because there was no proof. Things began coming into focus a bit better when BJ mentioned to me last week that 3 of his guys had come up to him at different times during the day and all told him the same thing: "This guy is cheating... and I think this is how he's doing it." Though what they said was a bit different the point was clear. BJ was telling me this and I thought it was a bit ironic because of some assignments I had received from my class.

Background: I gave my photo students and short paper to write (page and a half to two pages). It was to be on a famous photographer of their choosing, a short bio about that photographer, a photo by that person, and why they liked that picture or what made that shot powerful. The students had 2 weeks to work on it and they didn't have it done so I gave them the next class period to finish them. I only got 5 turned in and of those, 3 were completely copy and pasted off the internet.

BJ told Mr. Baker he would like to talk to him about what he had been told and I mentioned I'd like to talk to him about something similar. Later that day BJ and I went to the office and made our statements. I got some good ideas of how to deal with my issues and we were told the other issue would be discussed.

The issue of this young man was discussed during faculty meeting on Tuesday. During which time at least two or three other faculty members mentioned instances that they had either heard themselves, someone had told them, or by starting to realize things from class. The next day there was an Ad Council meeting and consequences have been set.

This isn't all that's been going on... Nina has been teaching Computer Apps. and she's had a couple times she thought people were copying each other. A couple days ago she came to me and showed me FOUR papers that were identical but all turned in by different people... although one girl forgot to change the name on the paper to her own.

I also had a few students who hadn't (a couple still haven't) turned in some in class assignments. I gave one guy another copy so he could turn it in and get off IP List. This guy had had lots of problems getting it done in class. I had gone over and helped him and tried explaining things to him but he was still very slow in getting anything done on it and wasn't putting forth much effort. So, I was very surprised when he returned both assignments to me completed the next day!

I looked over the assignment and realized that the handwriting looked VERY girly and I didn't think his was that neat. I decided to compare that handwriting to the others in the class and sure enough I found a perfect match. This was one of my students who had turned in the copied paper. Luckily, the girl who had done his assignment admitted to involvement. He tried denying it but I told him I still had to give him a zero for it because it looks the same.

I talked to all four of my little cheaters individually during class yesterday about what they had done and what would happen and explained things to them. I asked one of the girls if she had copy and pasted her paper (it was VERY obvious since she had left the format the same and hadn't even taken out the numbers for citations!) She said yes and I told her it was supposed to be in her own words and she couldn't just copy it. She said "you didn't tell us it had to be in our own words". I was SHOCKED! I wanted to laugh so badly but I held it until after class. I didn't know I had to state that the paper was to be in their own words... I guess I've learned for next time. And hopefully they have too.

I wish there was some way I could teach them more responsibility and less laziness. I wish they could see that its true what they say about the habits you form now are really hard to break later. I wish there was some way I could help them see that cheating isn't helping anybody in any way. And I wish there was some way I could show them that I really don't enjoy having to give them punishments and give them more work to do. More then anything I wish that they would realize that I care for them and want them to succeed in the next steps of their lives and develop a good character. Because I really do want them to develop into good people and do well in the future... and do it all honestly.