Cheating

When a teacher's career spans nearly thirty years, the total number of students has accumulated to about one thousand, well over thirty thousand hours walking among boys and girls of every personality, background, and capacity. I am actually surprised at how many still saturate my memories rather than a number I may have forgotten. Even when some names have become uncertain, their personalities are vivid. As are incidents.


Some are easy and obvious, like the boy who threw two books out the second floor window to see how long they would take to land. He forgot that his digital wrist watch did not count seconds. And the boy who was in a recess fist fight, and, when asked what happened, told the principal that he had three versions from which the principal could choose any one.

And two boys whose names I never knew, who were dragged over to me for violently quarreling. They stubbornly refused to even answer my questions until I switched into street talk. They were so astonished at my using exactly their vernacular that they forgot their anger and left friends.


Some instances are much subtler.


Several decades ago the Pasadena School District Set aside an hour each Wednesday for churches to take children from classrooms to nearby locations for some Bible study. Not every student participated in the program. Those who remained in the classroom were, by dictum, not to be taught anything. 

At the time, five remained in my class. I set up some table games and acvtivities. I often read stories to my classes, but that was tabooed as “luring students away from the Bible thing.”

One of the s students who remained was a girl who eventually graduated from Barnard College. She and a boy were at one of the table games.


The boy at the game with her suddenly growled "You cheated!"


She replied in a level voice, "I don't care if I cheat."


There was a long moment of silence.  Then the boy said softly, "Show me."