Cheating

Today my kids took a science test. I was a little nervous about how they'd do because the last chapter was quite boring, not a lot of good experiments or activities to do and the chapter took longer than I would have liked. We did chapter reviews and the kids studied together a bit, but I knew that it would be tough for kids who don't do well on traditional tests.

When I went to grade the tests, I was pleasantly surprised as my students seemed to do really well on the front page which was vocabulary. They did less well on the next page, and on the writing section they did well enough that I felt like they had learned the necessary skills.

Then I graded the tests of two of my students and noticed that they had the exact same answers. On a multiple choice test, that's one thing, but on the writing sections, again, the answers were exactly the same. I got angry when I first read through them. I sometimes take the misbehavior of my students personally and that's what I did at first.

When I approached the students, both of them began to sob, one protestng her innocence, the other just quietly crying. I don't know exactly what they thought I was going to do to them, but when I said they'd have to take a different test and get a behavior referral, they both calmed down considerably.

I'm smart enough to realize that there is a reason that students cheat at this age, and it's not because they are lazy (at least not for the most part.) The child in question does his homework. He's an English Language Learner and is below grade level in reading. Of course we spend a lot of time talking about the science concepts, so he's not expected to get it all on his own, but clearly something wasn't clicking for him. I'm more sad that he felt like he had to cheat than that he did cheat.