A student of mine plagiarized his entire final essay. All of it—every last word—copied and pasted from a website. But here’s the thing: I don’t blame him. Not entirely.
You see, I’m a teacher, and, as any teacher is likely to tell you, the burden of student success weighs heavy on my shoulders. Or, more simply: I take the responsibility of teaching very seriously.
So my student’s failure is, at least in part, my failure. If my goal is to impart knowledge on a particular subject, and my student completely misses the mark, then, to my view, it begs the question: Where did I go wrong?
Micro and macro evaluation of one’s performance is a daily activity in this profession—perhaps not more than what is found in other professions, but it is certainly very high for educators given what’s at stake (i.e. intellectual growth, etc.). Every lesson plan that falls flat, every bombed quiz, every averted set of eyes and disinterested, glazed over looks gets subconsciously catalogued and processed for later review. “How could I have done better by them?” has felt like the central question of my time as a professor.
Yes, my student is responsible, too. He is on the hook for his education as much as I am. I know that, but it doesn’t change the semester-long loop playing over and over in my head. In the weeks we’ve spent together as student and teacher, where could I have invested more time, further highlighted what constitutes plagiarism, discussed ways to avoid it at length? Would it have made a difference? I’ll never know. But like the baseball player who wants one more pitch, I want to believe I could do better if given the chance.
I guess that’s what new semesters are for.
