Catching Cheaters (The Teachers' Version of Hunger Games)

This is how I started my third block class today: front of the room, arms folded, legs braced, glaring at my students. I tried to keep my voice disappointed instead of angry, but rage bit in my undertones.

 

Disturbing Statistics

 “Students in my other classes have been caught cheating with test questions that only your class had. Somebody in this class gave their test questions to students in another class.”

Students slunk deep in their seats. Immediate denials and incredulousness from every side. To hear them, they’ve never even taken a test in my class, and don’t have friends in another class—heck, they don’t have any friends at all.

“I know you think you were helping out a friend, but that is cheating. Cheating. It not only gets you a zero, but it also goes on your record. Permanently. Colleges will see it and think twice before offering you admission.” I paused to let that sink in. “You need to tell me, and you need to tell me now, in here, instead of in the principal’s office with your parents on the phone later.” The students shifted uncomfortably. Some broke eye contact with me; others loudly asserted their innocence.

“We know that at least two people did it. I need to know who.” My gaze played across the room in professional cheater-catcher mode. “If nobody comes forth, you’re all going to have to retake that test.” Immediately, squeals of denial filled the room. I held up a hand for silence. “If you’re mad about that, just convince whoever did it to come forward. Have them admit it, and you all won’t have to retake the test.” As I heard students mutter, I responded to them: “If you don’t retake, you’ll get a zero.” I gave them a minute to think about that. Students turned to each other, whispering furiously, swearing on their souls and their i-pods that they weren’t the ones who cheated. Others demanded to know whether their desk-mates had done it.

 

I thought about how to leverage my relationship with the students to get the confessions. “I’m not going to make you announce it in front of the class. We’ll make it anonymous. You have two minutes now to take out a piece of paper. If you didn’t cheat, you don’t need to write anything on it, but writing that you didn’t cheat and signing that will make me more convinced. If you did, just write it on the paper. If you know who did it, write their name down. And please, talk to each other now. Figure out who did it. You’re not helping your friends by hiding them. You’re fostering dishonesty and academic laziness in your own classroom. Be honest.”

They slowly took out scraps of paper and scribbled on them, folding them over and handing them to me. I announced that those who refused to turn anything in would be the first in the principal’s office. Clearly they had something to hide. As students gave me their papers, they looked at me with pleading or defiant eyes—“You know I didn’t do it, right, Ms. W.?” I maintained cold, distant silence as everyone turned in their papers.

“I’m going to read them. If I don’t get the names by the end of this period, you’ll spend fourth block in the office. In the meantime, I’ve got a video on the Cold War for you to recap what you learned yesterday.” I stalked to my desk, and snapped on the video of McCarthy that I’d prepared. As it rolled, I watched the students. Most were whispering together anxiously, while others stared at the screen with glazed, fearful eyes. I let them talk for a minute as I read their signed "IDK" proclamations before I picked up the phone, muttering to administration, well aware that all eyes were on me.

“She’s on her way. Now will you tell me who cheated?”

Not me!

Honest—

We would never—

You’re not going to find out like this—

Don’t you trust us?

And the inevitable “can I go to the bathroom?”

That was when I lost it. A corner of my mouth quirked and suddenly my grin was too big to hold back. “No, you cannot go to the bathroom, you’ve all been punked and have to learn about McCarthyism instead.” The kids were stunned. We talked about how they’d felt, how they’d been anxious even though completely innocent, how I’d made them sign “loyalty oaths” that they hadn’t cheated which really didn’t mean anything and how they’d ganged up and mistrusted the rest of the class. They calmed down and started to laugh as they realized how they’d been duped. They learned about McCarthyism in Hollywood and compared it to political maneuvering today fairly adroitly—some of them are professionally-pundit-bound, I’ve no doubt.

Later, we moved on to a discussion of what constitutes terrorism in which they had to examine case studies and argue out whether it was terrorism or freedom-fighting. I was reassured by my co-teacher’s presence. Normally I value her for more than her religious identity, but having both Muslim and Jewish perspectives in the room made me more comfortable and she also kept me from being too apologetically bleeding-heart liberal by stamping with approval certain messages I’d wanted to get across: people may have legitimate reason to be angry, but they never have legitimate reason to commit acts of terror. However the kids had defined those (defining terrorism was their assessment for the day). As the kids scampered out into the crisp (finally) winter day, I felt like the curtain had come down on a well-executed play. And, scene.