One of my colleagues Nikola asked me to proofread a few short essays written, I thought I understood, by local students. I eagerly accepted, feeling relieved to have something concrete to do that I knew I could complete to perfection. They already had been proofed by someone who obviously was not a native English speaker. I did find some spelling and grammatical mistakes although I was impressed overall by the work as well as the subject matter. I asked Nikola about the students, who they were, what classes they were taking, and he seemed not to know, which I found odd. Why did he even have them in the first place? I was anxious to meet these kids, talk to them, maybe tutor them.
Long after I was done, a boy I assumed to be one of the students came by to pick them up. I asked him which one he had written, and he shook his head. I asked him if I could meet the students that wrote the essays, especially the one on the education system in Macedonia, which I found to be extremely insightful. He looked at me like I was crazy. I asked him, in Macedonian, if he spoke English, and he scoffed, "Nah". Then he went with Nikola to Nikola's computer with a disk, and they proceeded to work on something.
By and by I went over there to see what they were doing, and I saw that the content of the three essays had been typed up already. Nikola was implementing my corrections to the document. Naively I even helped a little bit further. I started asking Jasminka how the student, a boy of probably fifteen years, knew the authors of the essays. She said she didn't know, and I asked her why he had them, and she said she didn't know. I was like, why the heck does he have a typed up copy of these other people's work? It was not making sense. Then she explained he was trying to complete an assignment to demonstrate his English proficiency. I thought I misunderstood, so I asked her again how those essays were part of his assignment. Finally, she said, "He's cheating!"
I didn't know what to say. I just stood there for a moment, and then I said, "I think that's wrong." She kind of nodded and said, "It's for the grade." I replied, "But he didn't write those. He's stealing someone else's work!" I felt myself starting to get angry and I reminded myself that it had nothing to do with Jasminka. Don't shoot the messenger, I reminded myself. I told her, "I would not have helped if I would have understood what was going on." She just looked at me. I said, "There is no way that I would have helped if I understood that he was cheating in school. This is wrong." Right then I had to run an errand, and I was relieved to get out of there.
When I returned, I decided not to say anything about it. It made me angry for those students who worked so hard to do that work. Those were their ideas, one of them contained very private, individual thoughts about friendships. What kind of example did we set as adults, not only turning our heads to a student cheating for a grade he didn't earn, but helping him! Nikola sat there and typed all the corrections while the kid leaned against the wall and watched. I have told people repeatedly I would help them with their English work, but that I wouldn't do it for them.
What is this kid's teacher going to think, when she receives three grammatically perfect essays from a kid who can't even write in English? I restructured some of the sentences extensively to make them perfect. It isn't the British English they teach here, it's American English. It is going to be obvious that not only did he not do it, but that there could have been only one person who did - me. Like I think that's a cool thing to support in any way, shape or form!!
I think that's abhorrent. I am against lying, I am against cheating, I am against the idea of people profiting from other people's hard work. And I am against people who think that they deserve a free ride. What is that grade worth? What does it do to the value of any of those kids' grades? I want to slap people like this upside the head and ask them who the hell they think they are. I worked hard for things I have, and I'll be damned if I am going to support people who steal things, ideas or what have you.
I feel like I was taken advantage of by people who have different values than I do, and I feel like through a misunderstanding I participated in something that actually I strongly disagree with, which is why I am peeved about it still. I will have to find a way to communicate to everyone that I am against this, without totally offending them. I wish I could take it back, look at Nikola and tell him no, and why, and let him think on that one. People should have some pride about themselves! I am not disturbed about one homework assignment. I am disturbed with this new insight into the values of people I truly like.