A Cheaters’ Guide for Teachers & Students ..... 113
For many years I asked my fifth-grade students to write an essay “How to Cheat.” Most of them brightened up. But one of the sharper ones bristled.
“You think WE cheat?”
This particular student is feisty. She also is pretty darned smart, charismatically attractive, and perceptive. Her ducks line up. She also gives me verbal pokes regularly.
“Griselda, my dear. I’ve been around awhile. I KNOW some of you cheat.”
“We know… that.” She lets the that hang. It is playfulness couched in a beatific smile.
“You know...WHAT?”
“Dinosaurs.”
“What? Dinosaurs? Your head’s on backwards.”
She smiles, puts her head down, pen to paper. Doesn’t even look at me and says, “I heard your first pet was a stegosaurus. You know…been …around… awhile.”
The kids laugh. I have to also. They resume their task and eventually the eternal question arises.
“Full page or half page?”
“What do you think?”
A chorus of them groan and chant... “FULL PAGE.”
“El correcto.” I reply.
I try to make the topics interesting. Like, Why You Should Never Fart in a Closet. How to Annoy Siblings. Dumb Stuff My______ Did. Why Boys are Horrible. Why Girls are Horrible. The Female Secret - Buying Shoes. Why Carlos is Late Every Day. How Come Esmeralda Always has Garbage in Her Backpack? Family Secrets You Shouldn’t Know But I’ll Tell.
But with this day’s essay I’m also trying to keep one step ahead of them. Griselda get’s it first. She turns her head slightly, squints at me, and raises her hand.
“Yeeees.” I ask.
“Hey…if we write all this top secret information.” She leans back and crosses her arms. “You’ll know HOW we cheat.”
“See… I…have been around. Full page Griselda, full page.”
In the end their answers vary little from previous years. The cheating methods include: writing on skin, or on the bottom of shoes, passing notes, exchanging answers in the bathroom, texting, hiding notes in books and placing the book upright, copying neighbors, writing ON pencils. Have the answers written on a paper and the paper is placed on the kid’s back in front of you. It is endless.
Griselda stares at me. “YOU cheat too.”
“What!” I frown, “Somebody hit you in the cabeza with a big fat rock.”
“What if I can prove you showed us how to cheat? Can we have early recess?”
Days a little long so far. She MUST have something on me. No idea what? Perhaps... I wouldn’t mind going out five minutes early.
“The rest of you keep writing. I’m game if Griselda here is correct.”
“Ten minutes early?” She asks.
“Well aren’t we little Miss negotiator. Five! If you’re not squeezing out a Pinocchio on me.”
“Remember when those Rejectors came in to observe us? They were watching you and you said we better behave, listen, and answer questions.”
“Umm, yes, I do remember the state inspectors with their clipboards.” Not sure where she’s going with this.
“Unhuh!" she waggles her finger at me, "You called them Rejectors!”
A few of her supporters chime in “Yeah, you said they were Rejectors.”
“Okay, okay…maybe I did. What does that have to do with cheating?
“Ten minutes?” Griselda tries again.
“Seven max.”
“You told us we ALL had to raise our hands when the…inspectors came in and you asked us questions. If we knew the answer to raise our right hand and if we didn’t to raise our left hand.”
Damn! Darned kid…she’s correct. Better deny it.
“Don’t seem to remember that at all.”
A collective groan rises from the class. One of the other kids adds, “You even showed us how to tell left from right cuz some kids are confused. ‘You said stick out your nose-picking finger straight out with both hands. Then stick out our thumbs at a 90-degree angle. Whichever two fingers make a real L…that’s the left hand!’”
“I remember that.” One kiddo says.
“Me too.” Offers another, “I even showed my dumb brother. Sometimes he can tell the difference now cuz of it.”
Another says, “That’s the only way Luis can remember left and right.”
All the kids laugh.
“So…do we get it?” Griselda probes… “The… ten minutes?”
“Yeah… NO! Only seven minutes.”
The kids cheer. I line them up and they go out the door. When Griselda passes I make her go to the end of the line. She doesn’t know why. I wait until all the kids scoot out the door.
“It was a baby T-Rex.”
“What?” She looks confused and goes out the door. Then comes back and giggles… “Got it. You old cheater.”