They are care you

My students have been plagiarizing. As a young, idealistic, passionate teacher who hasn't grown old and cynical yet, I can't help but take it personally.  I feel like they have insulted my ability to operate a search engine, and more importantly, broken my trust in them.  I know, I should just calm down, fail a few students, and sleep peacefully at night. I am giving some zeros this time, but I also want to change some minds.

I assigned my freshman a script for a skit they will perform next week.  Some students had no problem: they wrote a dialogue in excellent Chinglish.  Even if they wrote about some slightly uncomfortable topics, such as shopping for skin-whitening cream or unwanted pregnancies, at least they wrote it themselves.  ("Narrator: They did the thing that they loved." "Grace: Evan, Happy Father's Day!  You will be a father!" Evan: Oh, no!  I made bad decision!")

But I also received an adaptation of Jane Eyre, as well as dialogues copied and pasted from the internet: 

He : "She truly loves me."

She wishes to sit up and scream at him: "Don’t I?" 
He :  "So, I think she won’t force me to do something that I don’t want to do." 
She’s thinking, but the rage won’t subside.

Daisy, are you really capable of writing this?  No.  I found it on Baidu (China's Google equivalent).

I went on QQ to find my students and chew them out, and succeeded in messaging the wrong person.  This is what happens when you have 3 students named Daisy.  Daisy kept denying that she had cheated, which made me even angrier, until suddenly I asked, "Wait...do you have class with me on Thursday or Friday???"  And then I apologized profusely, and learned a new phrase from the wrong Daisy: "松一口气", to let out a sigh of relief.  Meanwhile, the real Daisy thought she was getting away with something.  

Or maybe she just didn't know she did anything truly wrong.  Many Chinese students see nothing bad about lifting a sentence here and there.  After all, shouldn't one copy from a master to improve oneself?  As for cheating on tests, passing China's imperial examinations has historically involved elaborate methods of cheating, as evidenced by some Qing Dynasty cheat sheets discovered a few years ago.

While talking to the wrong Daisy on QQ, I also vented to another, student, Blue: "Question...why do students think it's ok to take words from the internet, write them down, and then give them to me and say they wrote it?"  She didn't see my message, but the next day she chatted with me:

Blue: I couldn't understand your mean yesterday, but now, I know…maybe they want to get your attention 

Margaret: oh, you mean my students cheating?

Blue: yes 

Margaret: you would think they DON'T want to get my attention...they don't want me to notice that they cheated.... i guess they want to do well and they don't know how

Blue: I just want to say don't worry 

Margaret: :) thanks

Blue: and don't be sad 

Margaret: I am a little sad just because I don't like to be angry at my students, but this week I have been angry..

Blue: they are care you 

Blue: they care you 

Blue: I can understand you 

Margaret: :)

Blue: but they will understand you, you hope they get a good grade

I appreciated Blue's small gesture of understanding and encouragement.  I did not enjoy the "angry teacher" session where I scathingly told my classes, "I'm not stupid, I know how to use the internet."  I also told them that their English won't improve if they don't make it their own.   I later received a text from one of the cheaters, saying (and I paraphrase), "I thought about what you said, and about what I can learn during my 4 years at college, and I realized that that's the most important thing. I don't care about the grade. You are one of the best teachers I've ever had, and definitely not stupid."   I hope his words are sincere, that he won't plagiarize ever again.  But maybe I'm being naively idealistic!