Thread by @suzyjstyles

🧵On plagiarism + #HiddenCurriculum

Once I received an essay 90% copied from Wikipedia, and called the student for a meeting. I always start with two actions:

👉🏻I show a printout of the Turnitin report and explain that’s why we are meeting

👉🏻I ask if the student is OK

Often, if someone was just ‘blagging’ their way through or thought they wouldn’t get caught, when I ask this question I get a blank stare, or a nervous laugh, or like, wat?

Sometimes a student breaks out in a cold sweat and says ‘that’s what I was taught to do at my old school is it wrong?’ or a defiant ‘what do you mean am I OK? are you ok?’

Some students thing ‘are you OK?’ is a joke or a flex to make the feel uncomfortable... But sometimes it’s the most important question you could possibly ask.

Just once, in a meeting with me and the Dean of students, a first year burst into tears.
She explained her Dad had died three days before the deadline. She was the only adult at home, and between arranging the funeral and handling her grief she...

She cared SO MUCH about her education that she submitted ~something~. She knew it was worth some weighty percent of her grade and she knew it was important, so she did what she could to perform minimal compliance. She demonstrated willing.

... what she didn’t know - what she (as a first gen scholar) COULDN’T KNOW was that the deadline was the *least important* element of the assessment.
Here are some things she didn’t know...

My first gen student didn’t know...
👉🏻Plagiarism can result in zero, but late work, a (minor)marks deduction
👉🏻Plagiarism can result in failing out
👉🏻When you have a valid reason, it’s OK to ask for an extension.
👉🏻Deadline extensions exist
👉🏻Other students ask for extensions

My first gen student didn’t know...
👉🏻I care about her well-being as a human
👉🏻I don’t want her to fail out, flame out or crash and burn through no fault of her own
👉🏻Our schools and systems have support structures for struggling students
👉🏻We have counselling and help available

My first gen student didn’t know...
👉🏻That every student makes their own path through a challenging environment
👉🏻That sometimes *good enough* is GREAT
👉🏻That you can AND SHOULD be able to ask for help to get to your own personal *good enough*

So I think about this student and her Dad at the start of every academic year.
What can I do to help a first gen student know more about the paths they can take before they are in crisis?
What can I do to build a student community with compassion towards each other?

So First Gen’s take note!
👉🏻Not everyone’s Roadmap to Graduation is the same
👉🏻There is a lot of LUCK involved in a smooth ride
👉🏻With a bit of help you can maybe avoid the fail-out pit of doom - ask for help when you need!
👉🏻Good enough can be GREAT!

https://twitter.com/suzyjstyles/status/1431094035767173122?s=21