The Day the Small Town Came to a Stand Still

Small town Cynthiana came to a stand still on Monday, February 14, 2005. From 10 a.m. until 11 a.m., everyone quit what they were doing, work ceased, school work was postponed, and everyone watched "The Ellen Show."

A teacher and sister of a friend of one of the guests on the Ellen Show, ceased her classroom teachings while everyone focused their attentions to the classroom tv; various classes throughout the high school did the same thing. A patient in a local doctor's office refused to be seen until the segment of the show had concluded. A health sciences student and teacher were giving a patient a bath at the local hospital and after asking the patient's permission, they all watched the entire show together. It appears that was the longest bath on record at that hospital. Macho men stayed indoors to catch the show, even taping it for their wives.

At 11 a.m., students went back to their school work, adults went back to their work stations, doctors were able to see their patients again, and life went back to normal--whatever normal is for small town Cynthiana.

Integrity

Integrity is one thing you have that only you can give away. Each semester, I have two or three students who do just that. I teach computers. I give the students my integrity speech each semester on the first day of class. Undoubtedly though, there are always those who think they can't get caught. Some misguided students think that they can submit each other's work as their own and I will not know the difference.

A few years ago when this would happen, I would get furious. Now, knowing that each semester two or three will try to get one by me, I just become disappointed.

When this occurs, most students will swear they didn't cheat, until I show them all of their identical work. Finally, one of them will admit their misdeed. Most often, the faster student, gets finished early, and being a friend, they want to help their classmate out, so they give their work away. The recipient of this well-intended friend's work may change the font size, the color of their work, etc., but they never recognize the "telling" errors; i.e, forgetting to change reference initials, using the same graphic, when they would have had a choice of many pictures, the typographical errors., etc. The end result is the same, everyone gets a grade of "0" for each item submitted. But more importantly, they lose a bit of their integrity.

The latest occurrence happened just last week. When I confronted the three young men (away from their classmates), one of them just laughed out loud and shook his head. The one who gave the work denied his involvement, and the third guy said, "I changed the font." The one with the laugh explained that he was laughing because he couldn't believe teachers looked at student work that carefully. The one changing the font, said he got the work from the guy denying the involvement, and went on to explain how the other one gave him his work on a disk and he transferred it to his computer. The young man giving the work away was in shock, I think, and remained silent. I told him he was "too good of a friend." After giving them the integrity speech again, I told them I was not angry, just disappointed, and that they would now have to work harder to earn back the integrity they lost.

My goal each semester is to make it though without someone trying to outsmart me, not because I am smart, but because I still believe in students, and I want student integrity to stay in tact. Maybe, I am dreaming, but one can hope.

Things you learn through blogging

Blogging seems to be the new craze in our family. Daily, it seems, I get an e-mail telling me to go read someone's blog. Even more amazing now, is that thanks to the latest post by StudPace, the most technologically challenged member of our family has created a blog identity.

I have learned a lot through reading the blogs of other people, especially those of my family members--specifically my children. There is a belief that mom's know everything. I have discovered, however, that that is simply not true. All I have to do is read the blogs of a-whit and I learn many things about childhood happenings--some things that would not be my choice to be revealed, but albeit, my daughter sees things differently. Anything for a laugh!

So, parents beware, once your offspring gets his or her own blog, nothing is sacred.