Students Plagiarize

Students plagiarize. They plagiarize because they are tired, they plagiarize because they are ignorant, they plagiarize because they are lazy, and they plagiarize because they are overwhelmed.

When I get discouraged about plagiarism (and I do get discouraged when out of a class of 17, 10 students plagiarize), I remember one of the best lessons I ever learned about teaching.

I had been teaching the American Revolution to high school students and it came out that they were confusing the American Revolution with the Industrial Revolution. I told a friend about this class. I said, "I can't believe American students could be so ignorant of their own history!" My friend looked at me and said, "Isn't that why you are teaching them?"

I suppose that sentence has always stayed with me. "Isn't that why you are teaching them?" Students plagiarize--this is why I'm teaching them. I'm teaching them because I want them to care about their learning and their writing. I want them to enjoy their minds and the pleasure that comes from doing something well.

Students plagiarize. It's time for me to roll up my sleeves, pray harder, and learn more thoroughly how to make my students think, dream, learn, and write. God grant me the wisdom.

A Short Poem

Before words
Ideas
Before ideas
Wonder
How can I teach these things?

Polite Underwear

Sometimes I think that Thai men are much more secure in their masculinity than American men. I've seen many Thai men wear head bands (the kind that 12-year old girls wear in the states) with a confidence that surprises me. So last Sunday, as I walked through an outdoor market, I shouldn't have been surprised when my eyes fell on a brand of men's underwear that had a very unmanly ring to it. The brand name was "polite underwear."

Since when did underwear become polite?

Hiding from the Awful Ants

Last night, after a tremendous thunderstorm, the awful ants came out. They are so named by me because they have wings and they can push their little squirmy bodies through screens, fly into a house, then promptly shed those wings so they can get it on on the floor. The wings go everywhere--in your sink, on your toothbrush, in between your sheets. Aghh! And the awful ants never come out in moderation; they come out in hordes.

I could actually hear the the awful ants coming. The storm was abating, and I was standing outside. The night seemed for a moment to get calmer and sweeter. Then just as the thunder was fading away the awful ants took up the tune. Wah!! I could hear the sound of their wings. I ran into my house and turned off all my lights so they couldn't find me. (Does this sound like a horror movie? It is.)

More Than Supper Required

She was a scrawny thing: small, undernourished, needy. My roommate introduced me to her. More like Laka introduced herself to my roommate and I got thrown in on the bargain. Laka was ten years old when I met her. She was in the lower grades of the school where I held my first teaching job. Her family lived down the street from my house, but they were a strange family. . .It didn’t seem like they noticed their daughter very much let alone feed her very well. She seemed to be more like a stray animal than a child.

She would drop by my house at night with a hungry look on her face. I would ask her, “What did you eat for breakfast?”

“Instant noodles.” She would say.

“Lunch?” I quizzed her down.

“Instant noodles.”

“Supper?”

“Instant noodles.”

It was always the same. She had eaten something she cooked herself-- something easy and cheap for a ten-year-old to make.

“Come in.” I would tell her. Then I’d feed her a portion of my supper. Because Laka was small and overlooked she could be awkward at times. I remember she was not ashamed to ask for more food. If I had anything on my shelves she would point at it, “What is that? Can I have it?” If we left anything sitting around she would pick it up. She once grabbed my roommate’s camera and started taking pictures. My roommate and I decided after that if she ate with us she would have to follow our house rules. “No touching” we would tell her. “Laka, ask before you take things,” we would scold her.

My most vivid memory of her was on Saturday afternoon we went for a walk together. I remember she took my hand and held it as we walked down the street. Strangely enough my strongest emotion was shame. I was embarrassed to be seen walking down main street with this child clinging to me. I was worried that people might laugh at me for being so conned by her.

True, I had enough compassion to feed her, but I did not enough courage to love her. True, she always stopped by my house after I was exhausted from work. True, she wanted to spend every Saturday with me (my only day off). True, she was inconvenient. But why didn’t I love her more? She needed so much more than my begrudging offer of supper.

Words We Dislike

Today at lunch several of the English and ESL teachers were discussing words we dislike. Nowadays and moreover are top of our list. Somewhere, somehow, nowadays got voted as the most popular way to start an essay (at least in Thailand). My first reaction to an essay starting with, nowadays is generally to let out a small scream. I'm on the verge of banning nowadays and moreover completely from use. I might even write in my syllabus: Thou shalt not start an essay with nowadays.

From our discussion of least-favorite-words-in-student-essays we moved to least-favorite-words-in-general. One of the school administrators sitting at our table mentioned how he hates synergy. Synergy has all all the markings of a hip word gone south.

If an administrator could hate synergy, I hate the word excellence. Mostly because so many schools go around proclaiming that they strive for excellence that is sounds blah. I can't see or touch or feel excellence. What do they mean? Saying that something is excellent is like saying someone is nice or saying that something is interesting.

I don't know how to change excellent; I don't know how to resuscitate the word so it's breathing again--but until then moreover! and nowadays!

Writing Advice

I tend to wax eloquent. I get carried away and often overstate things. When it comes to writing—I love to emphasis the wonder, the poetry, the magic of writing. I love all the goosebumpy things. But forsooth. I also live in the ordinary-run-of-the-mill-must-get-the-writing-done-soon world. I know that not everything I’ve written has come from the muses. Some articles have come out of sheer frustration. I’ve written many things with a kind of constipation-of-words approach. The words didn’t come. The words didn’t come. The words didn’t come. But I simply wrote until they came (in this case deadlines and bosses and people who make you write—bless their nazi-souls) are great aids.

The greatest writing advice I was ever given. “What is the secret of writing? The secret of writing is sitting on your ass and doing it.”