A childhood personal essay
Sep. 21st, 2004 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
It's not a very GOOD childhood personal essay, but it's all true. Except the part about the nightmares. I don't have them anymore :)
The past few years, it seems like the biggest scandals don’t involve elections or wars or prisoners, they involve cheating. At least, those other scandals die down and are generally forgotten, but the cheating scandals keep appearing, year after year, with scary reports claiming that 25%, 50%, 95% of students from kindergarten on up cheat on a yearly/monthly/weekly/daily basis. Some of them may be cheating right now! And none of these students sees a problem with cheating. They make comments like “Everybody cheats, it’s no big deal” and “You can’t get into college if you don’t cheat”. It’s horrible, terrible, indicative of the fact that society is indeed crumbling around us.
I feel bad when I read these articles. I don’t cheat. This, apparently, makes me a freak. Or at least very unusual. It’s as though I’m shirking some important duty by not caring enough about my grades to try to fake them. My parents didn’t raise me properly. I knew from the time I was six that “grades don’t matter, all that matters is that you learned”. This was a bad thing to tell me, since it failed to teach me the sort of perfectionism that leads people to do drastic things for their grades. One of my few chances to fit in, and my parents blew it by caring about what we learned, not how we tested.
Actually, what I just said about cheating? That’s not true. Oh, no, I really don’t care about my grades, that’s true, but that’s not the entire reason I don’t cheat. I don’t cheat because my first ever experience with cheating was horribly traumatic. I still have nightmares about it.
This was back in the first grade. Our teacher, Mrs. Sargente, had a set of workbook exercises for us in reading. We would do the exercises alone, then grade our neighbor’s tests and report the grade to her. I already knew how to read, since I was three, so I got fairly good to perfect grades on these tests. Even if I hadn’t, I don’t think it would have actually occurred to me to ask other people to change my scores on them. But the other people at my table weren’t so honest, and routinely asked their graders to just change a few answers. Yes, already these first graders weren’t accepting 70s and 80s, only 95s and 100s. And then Mrs. Sargente caught on. All the tables had been doing the same thing, so she called us up by table, checked our answers individually, and cut the stickers off the pages from the people who’d cheated. And then it was time for me and Rebecca. I’d been grading Rebecca’s work, and carefully changing her answers for her. Mrs. Sargente looked at the two of us and said “You don’t have to show me your tests, I know I can trust you”.
She knew she could trust me. I’m still not sure if she meant that she thought I was an honest person, or that she thought I was just too smart to need to cheat (I’d already been put in a reading group of my own because I was reading better than the rest of the class), but she knew she could trust us. And she didn’t cut off my stickers, or Rebecca’s. It was horrible. She knew she could trust us, when in reality, she couldn’t trust either of us, least of all me! (Yes, I know, the person she really couldn’t trust was Rebecca, but my mind wasn’t too clear at the moment. I was young.)
So that was it. The last time I cheated. Never gonna cheat, not me! I have mostly stood by this resolution. I did cheat once more in my life, but I don’t blame myself for it. During a biology test, the kid in front of me held up his test just as I was looking up. I saw one of his answers (really, I could hardly miss it), and, after a few minutes of thought, decided to put it on my test. Why not? I’d already seen it, and now there was no way for me to remember the answer on my own. I still feel bad about that, though.
I, Connie Baker, do solemnly swear this is my own work. After what I just said about cheating, I'd be offended if you accused me of it. Besides, I can't imagine what sort of person would want to copy that dreck, it's really NOT very good. Mostly because I forgot about it and just now typed it up. Um. I didn't say that.
Hi Professor I-think-your-name-is-Crawford!
The past few years, it seems like the biggest scandals don’t involve elections or wars or prisoners, they involve cheating. At least, those other scandals die down and are generally forgotten, but the cheating scandals keep appearing, year after year, with scary reports claiming that 25%, 50%, 95% of students from kindergarten on up cheat on a yearly/monthly/weekly/daily basis. Some of them may be cheating right now! And none of these students sees a problem with cheating. They make comments like “Everybody cheats, it’s no big deal” and “You can’t get into college if you don’t cheat”. It’s horrible, terrible, indicative of the fact that society is indeed crumbling around us.
I feel bad when I read these articles. I don’t cheat. This, apparently, makes me a freak. Or at least very unusual. It’s as though I’m shirking some important duty by not caring enough about my grades to try to fake them. My parents didn’t raise me properly. I knew from the time I was six that “grades don’t matter, all that matters is that you learned”. This was a bad thing to tell me, since it failed to teach me the sort of perfectionism that leads people to do drastic things for their grades. One of my few chances to fit in, and my parents blew it by caring about what we learned, not how we tested.
Actually, what I just said about cheating? That’s not true. Oh, no, I really don’t care about my grades, that’s true, but that’s not the entire reason I don’t cheat. I don’t cheat because my first ever experience with cheating was horribly traumatic. I still have nightmares about it.
This was back in the first grade. Our teacher, Mrs. Sargente, had a set of workbook exercises for us in reading. We would do the exercises alone, then grade our neighbor’s tests and report the grade to her. I already knew how to read, since I was three, so I got fairly good to perfect grades on these tests. Even if I hadn’t, I don’t think it would have actually occurred to me to ask other people to change my scores on them. But the other people at my table weren’t so honest, and routinely asked their graders to just change a few answers. Yes, already these first graders weren’t accepting 70s and 80s, only 95s and 100s. And then Mrs. Sargente caught on. All the tables had been doing the same thing, so she called us up by table, checked our answers individually, and cut the stickers off the pages from the people who’d cheated. And then it was time for me and Rebecca. I’d been grading Rebecca’s work, and carefully changing her answers for her. Mrs. Sargente looked at the two of us and said “You don’t have to show me your tests, I know I can trust you”.
She knew she could trust me. I’m still not sure if she meant that she thought I was an honest person, or that she thought I was just too smart to need to cheat (I’d already been put in a reading group of my own because I was reading better than the rest of the class), but she knew she could trust us. And she didn’t cut off my stickers, or Rebecca’s. It was horrible. She knew she could trust us, when in reality, she couldn’t trust either of us, least of all me! (Yes, I know, the person she really couldn’t trust was Rebecca, but my mind wasn’t too clear at the moment. I was young.)
So that was it. The last time I cheated. Never gonna cheat, not me! I have mostly stood by this resolution. I did cheat once more in my life, but I don’t blame myself for it. During a biology test, the kid in front of me held up his test just as I was looking up. I saw one of his answers (really, I could hardly miss it), and, after a few minutes of thought, decided to put it on my test. Why not? I’d already seen it, and now there was no way for me to remember the answer on my own. I still feel bad about that, though.
I, Connie Baker, do solemnly swear this is my own work. After what I just said about cheating, I'd be offended if you accused me of it. Besides, I can't imagine what sort of person would want to copy that dreck, it's really NOT very good. Mostly because I forgot about it and just now typed it up. Um. I didn't say that.
Hi Professor I-think-your-name-is-Crawford!
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 08:21 am (UTC)He had us name all presents up to the current one, including their full names and the years of their terms. He also had us label all fifty states on a blank map AND I think we also had to name all the state capitals.
I wrote the answers for the president part on my hand in yellow gelpen (it wasn't that visible against my skin; I don't know HOW he didn't catch it.) I knew some of the states because of that Animaniacs song set to "Turkey in the Straw."
Despite cheating and everything, I got (I think) a 57. Still failed.
That test SUCKED.
Not to mention we spend about 50% of the semester on the Civil War because he was a CW buff too.
Oh! And what made it worse is that he's part of the "Catholics do everything!" conspiracy. Like, they shot JFK and Lincoln. And we had to WRITE about it. I got mad and wrote a smartass paper that went "Dude, Okay. Catholics are BAD. I get it now. Shut up!" or something. XD He gave me a 75 and wanted to see me after class. I'm still proud of that paper! I have it in my room somewhere (want me to type it up?)
The end.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 08:24 am (UTC)"He had us name all presidents up to the current one..."
Sorry. My hands usually type "present" when it starts "pres-" so that's what they did.
And, postscript: Later, around the dinner table my family was talking about the test. Mom made a comment about something like "Oh, I bet Jessica cheated!" in a joking manner. But when she said that, I got startled and blushed. Then they were like "YOU DID?!" and they all good a good laugh out of that. Bastards.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 10:37 am (UTC)Yeah, I don't think my family would believe it if I cheated either.