trigs;384272 wrotei was passing my students on to the next teacher and i warned him that one of them was having a lot of difficulty. she was failing a lot of assignments and i had caught her plagiarizing on at least three other assignments which she then received zeroes on. he proceeded to tell me that he has had this student in the past and is aware of her issues.
he then said, and i quote, "She has to plagiarize otherwise she won't pass." i just stared at him for a second dumbfounded and not sure what to say (i'm assuming that everyone knows that plagiarism is a big offense and is not tolerated at any school and automatically results in a zero and no chance to rewrite).
this teacher is one of the worst i've ever come across. he pretty much outright told me that he allows his students to plagiarize! worst part is i can't really do anything because i technically don't have proof and even if i did it is a very big deal to "tell on" another teacher. i have to write an official grievance against them and get the union involved and all this crazy stuff.
so basically, nothing will happen to him because no students are going to complain, and this guy will just continue "teaching" in this manner. imho this guy should be fired and stripped of his teaching degree.
being lazy and slacking is one thing (which i'm pretty much fine with), but this action is crossing the line. i have to quit being a teacher because i see crap like this every day and i'm really getting sick of it.
While we don't agree on a lot, this we can agree on.
In Korea, one of my teachers brought me a paper saying one of her students had plagiarized a paper for one of his assignments. I had her walk me through her instructions and then I read the paper the kid had written. Then I asked her for the source material the student had used. Sure enough he had copied word for word from the text. To make a long story short, it was agreed by the student and the parent that he had plagiarized his work.
As the principal of the school, it was deemed he would be suspended for 3 days as well as take a zero for the assignment. And this is what I was told directly from my supervisor “You cannot suspend him because it would hurt the boy’s self-esteem and it would be embarrassing to the boy’s family.”
I was also told that plagiarism is an accepted practice and if I was going to be an educator in Korea, I just had to accept it. i.e by one book and photocopy it for the entire class. One of the major issues I had about being there.
I feel for you. I don’t think your feelings have anything to with unions, rather with people’s integrity. If I had do things over again, I would not have become the principal and having to deal with the educational policies of the whole school and just worry about my own students. I mean it’s not like they can fail a grade anymore. All kids pass regardless of the work they produce.
Brent
