In these times of isolation and distance, it’s easy to lose sight of what my work means. But in the past two days, I received two emails that have brought that into focus.
It felt good.
These strange pandemic days have been going on for a year now, and I’m currently in self-quarantine, since a teenager pretty much inevitably brought COVID into the house. I recognize how fortunate I’ve been, both as an introvert and as a college instructor whose job, while more difficult (online is hard!), has not been in danger.
But the days all kind of blend together. As (I think) Seth Godin put it on some podcast or other: when you work from home, you live at work. And that’s made it feel much less like I’m making any kind of progress, and more like I’m just getting by — often barely. It’s better than many of the alternatives, of course. But it’s not great.
So I was pleased — no, to be honest, I was kind of blown away — to receive a couple emails over the past couple of days, reminding me that I do make a difference, sometimes, even if I don’t realize it.
The first note came from a colleague. Earlier, he’d expressed some frustration at a group of students who had plagiarized an assignment. He was fairly angry, but he was feeling uncomfortable following through with his stated policy of dropping students for plagiarizing. It’s one thing to drop one student; it’s another to drop several, all at one time.
I knew how he was feeling. I used to take plagiarism personally (“How could they do this to me?” — or, more often, “How stupid do they think I am?”). I got past that, eventually — though for a time I slipped into a detective phase, where I printed out, highlighted, and annotated proof — proof, dammit — of their crimes.
But over time — I’m not sure how — I’ve come to a different attitude. I’ve learned that most plagiarism comes from desperation, not malevolence. This isn’t always true, of course. Sometimes they’re just lazy (and sometimes that laziness leads to desperation).
But I’ve also learned that I can’t reliably discern their motives. So I’ve chosen to assume the plagiarism comes from fear, until proven otherwise.
That shift made a big difference for me. I’d often heard that plagiarism is best seen as a teaching moment (but… but… how stupid do they think I am?). But that little bit of empathy turns a mere “teaching moment” into an opportunity for connection.
So I wrote back to my colleague, offering him those insights, along with a few ideas as to how I might handle the situation, if I were in his position. I got a quick “thank you” note for talking him off the ledge, and thought I’d heard the last of it.
But a couple evenings ago, I received another message from him, letting me know that he’d spoken to each of the students, as I’d suggested, and that it had been a positive experience — that they’d been grateful he’d not brought the hammer down, and that he’d been grateful to have connected to the students in a meaningful way.
I had a part in that. It felt nice to hear it.
And then, last night, I received an email completely out of the blue, from a student from over a decade ago. She was Russian, with a degree in journalism from back home. I’m sure English was her third or fourth language. But she believed that the US education system required her to start over. So there she was, in a summer, developmental English course.
I remember her, though I don’t remember the details of the conversation she told me about in her email. Apparently, in a student-teacher conference, I suggested that she should teach Russian in college. This led her to have her diploma evaluated, and she discovered that she had a Master’s degree, which indeed qualified her to teach. She’s been teaching Russian since, and has earned a PhD. And she just decided to send an email letting me know.
I had a part in that. It felt nice to hear it.
I know that I make a difference in the lives of some of the people I teach and teach with. But sometimes it can feel like an article of faith, especially in these strange times when our interactions are mediated, and often muted, by Zoom. It’s nice to have that faith affirmed.
Photo by Rubén Rodriguez on Unsplash