Wednesday Final Finals

At 2:40 on Wednesday afternoon my two writing classes took their two hour final.  At midnight, I was finished with grading, calculating their final scores, writing the key, and filling out the statistic report.  I am practically done with my school responsibilities.  I just have to turn in all the exams on Friday, get the waiban office to sign some papers, have an English department farewell dinner and then will I be free?

 

Today we will have a women's group party.  I will cook pancakes.  Not sure what the students will cook.

 

A quick word about cheating:

 

On the national university English exam for all majors which happened a couple of weeks ago, my English students told me a story where an English student wrote an essay for a student who was in the classroom taking the exam.  The English major sent the essay via text by cell phone.  Cell phone?  It is incredible that teachers let students have a cell phone during a national exam.  Cell phones have dictionaries and well apparently you can send a full essay via cell phone.  It is crazy coz the teacher took the phone away from the student, but then the student begged for it back, "I am a volunteer for the red sports meet.  I need my phone."  What?  Crazy!

 

In my class I told the students to put their cell phones away.  I did NOT want to see a cell phone anywhere near them.  One student quickly checked her phone twice claiming that she was only checking the time.  I took it away, and she almost cried afraid that I'd fail her thinking that she was cheating.  I didn't fail her coz I don't know, maybe she was only checking the time.  I just took it away to ease my mind that she couldn't use it anymore to look up anything if that was what she was doing.

 

During other final exams, I heard that the teachers just left the classroom for an hour or so while the students were taking their exam.  Oh well...  What can one do?