Let me preface this entry by saying that I love my job. It's the best job that I've ever had and (most) of my students are a joy. A difficult, whiny, confusing, makes-me-want-to-rip-my-hair-out joy, but a joy nonetheless. Still, as with any job there are downsides. Inspired by this blog, I decided to highlight a few of them.


1. You Have To Be Switzerland
Opinions of any sort are frowned upon. You must be careful about every word that comes out of your mouth, because if you aren't and ONE person takes offense, you'll be collecting an unemployment check faster than you can say "Not fair!".
One of the great things about teaching is the fact that you can connect with students. It's very hard to connect when you have to respond with "I don't want to share that with you. My opinion doesn't matter" at the end of EVERY question they ask.

2. Bureaucracy
"You're here to teach." That's what they tell you, right? Well, yes, you are there to teach. Unfortunately you're also there to fill out several mountains of paperwork, endure sudden curriculum changes, yell at kids in the hallway, call a bajillion parents, fill out more paperwork, attend ARD's, chaperone events aaaand fill out more paperwork. It's a nightmare. Sometimes I am so bogged down with other (paper)work that I forget I'm a teacher.

3. No Respect
If you go to a "normal" job, odds are that people will greet you pleasantly, make small talk, etc. Very rarely will Jim Bob from one cubicle over start jumping up and down cussing at you about how they hate you and wish you would die. Jim Bob also probably doesn't ask "Do I haaaaaaaave to" anytime to make a request of him. Additionally, he probably doesn't fall asleep on you in the middle of a conversation and then get mad when you wake him up.

4. We Are Glorified Babysitters
You know what's sad? When you have to tell an 18-year-old boy to keep his hands to himself. Or yell at a 16-year-old boy for putting a tack on someones chair (dead serious, this happened). Similarly, quite a few parents have the unfortunate mindset that they are not responsible for their kids education. That's our job, not theirs. Sorry to break it to you, mom, but learning doesn't stop at 2:30.

5. The Students Have More Rights Than We Do
If a student were to punch me in the face, who would get in trouble? Well, unfortunately in today's society probably me. Something I said or did probably "scarred" this student for life. Similarly, if a student doesn't like a teacher, all they have to do is say that the teacher hugged them the wrong way and bada-bing bada-boom, the teacher is out of a job. I find this news report to be especially ridiculous: http://www.wyff4.com/news/18800227/detail.html

6. No Privacy.
Everytime I see the news put up a teachers myspace picture I cringe. It's like we're not allowed to be human. OMG DOES SHE HAVE A BEER!?!?!? HOW DARE THAT 28 YEAR OLD TEACHER DRINK ALCOHOLLZ! RAWR! Yes, I understand that you need to be tactful. I don't post anything that is scandalous, and nor should I be allowed to. It sets a bad image for the system. However, there's no need to freak out over the fact that a teacher went to happy hour.


All of the negatives aside, though, teaching is truly one of the most rewarding careers out there. Once you get past all of the tip-toeing, beraucracy, disrespectful students and annoying media attention, it's awesome. I get to watch my students make their way through high school and, if I do my job right, I can say that I contributed to their growth as human beings. I love it, and wouldn't have it any other way. :)

Last week I had to threaten all 60 of my Advanced Placement students with course failure. I came very close to following through with my threat, too. What would bring me, an otherwise fair and forgiving teacher, to set my wrath upon these poor over-achieving wannabe's?

Plagiarism.

Let me be perfectly clear. The more time passes, the more internet-savvy teachers come along, the EASIER IT IS FOR YOU TO GET CAUGHT! Don't plagiarize, you lazy moron. Do the work and take some pride in yourself.

So, in an effort to avoid further failures, allow me to present a few tips.

1) If you didn't wake up knowing it, cite it.
Did you put in your paper that basketball is the most popular sport? Unless you personally conducted a survey of every sports fan in the universe, I want to see where you found that out at.

2) Buy a good reference book.
I use Writing Research Papers by Lester & Lester. I was forced to buy it in 11th grade and it has become my research Bible. Seriously, guys. No one expects you to memorize this stuff. Get yourself a good reference source and keep it on hand.

3) Yes, you have to cite that .jpeg
This was shocking to my students. They did not know that images must be cited. Consider this a warning to any and all students reading my blog: cite your freaking pictures! Most teachers will overlook this faux pas, but when you get that ONE teacher who cares, tough luck.

4) Just because you can do it online, doesn't make it okay for a report
Obviously, I don't cite everything in every blog I write. In fact, I'm pretty sure almost every blogger has committed plagiarism, whether knowingly or not. Still, I do my best to give credit when credit is due. This lax viewpoint is NOT okay when turning in a thesis, research paper, dissertation, research proposal, etc. Don't even think about it.

5) Don't try to fool the teacher
Okay, first of all we teachers are not idiots. We're TEACHERS. We are the ones responsible for making sure that you enter this world with at least an iota of sense in that skull of yours. So do NOT think that you can pull a fast one on us! We are very familiar with the tricks of the trade. We probably used most of them ourselves when we were younger and more naive. Consider two papers: one in which someone copies and pastes from Sparknotes without citing, the other where one copies and pastes key phrases from Sparknotes but cites it properly. Which one do you think receives a pass and which becomes epic fail? Yeah, exactly. You actually sound SMARTER when you tell me you "cheated" and used Sparknotes for help. Weird how that works, huh?

6) Don't fight it. Learn it.
I know it's ridiculous that the period HAS to go behind the parenthesis and the ellipsis MUST go inside brackets. I know it sucks that if your quotation marks are misplaced you are "technically" plagiarizing. Do yourself a favor and double check your work with that wonderful reference book (#2) before you turn work in. That way, when you have Mr. MLA-Anal for a professor, your ass is covered.

On the same note, you can whine and complain about how "pointless" citations are, but that is not going to make them disappear. Shut up and deal with it.

7) Don't wait unti the last minute
Seriously, guys. If you're writing your paper an hour before its due odds are some of it will be wrong. Odds are even higher that what is wrong is your citations. Just saying.

8) Consider the consequences
I always hate to focus on punishment, but this is actually pretty serious. Especially in college, and especially if you have a turd of a professor who considers a misplaced comma a capitol offence. So here's what can happen if you are caught plagiarizing at the college level:

• You fail the course.
• You are promptly asked to leave the university, with no refund.
• You are forced to move back to your parents basement.
• You will be blacklisted, which means that you will be denied admission to all public institutions in the U.S.
  
• If the university publishes your material before it is caught, you can potentially be sued.
• Your boy/girlfriend will break up with you and you will die alone.

Okay, maybe not the last one. Still, guys, this is serious stuff! Check this out from plagiarism.org:

"Most cases of plagiarism are considered misdemeanors, punishable by fines of anywhere between $100 and $50,000 -- and up to one year in jail.

Plagiarism can also be considered a felony under certain state and federal laws. For example, if a plagiarist copies and earns more than $2,500 from copyrighted material, he or she may face up to $250,000 in fines and up to ten years in jail" ("Legal Punishments").

For more information on plagiarism check it out here: http://www.plagiarism.org/index.html

Have you ever plagiarized, whether on accident or on purpose? What happened?