(I am covering a first-grade classroom in a lower-income school. Most of the kids are from low-income families who struggle. The average child is from a broken home or from a single mother with kids from multiple fathers. A student, crying, runs up to me. She tells me another student has taken her pencil box and all her crayons. Each student has a box with their names on it. On top of that, this girl’s crayon box in the pencil box is labelled with her name. I call the other student over.)

Me: “Hey, [Student #2], did you take crayons out of [Student #1]’s pencil box?”

Student #2: “Yes.”

Me: “[Student #2], you need to give them back. They are not your crayons; they belong to her.”

Student #2: “No, I will not. They are mine. It is fair.”

Me: “No, you took them from her. That is not fair. Where are your crayons?”

Student #2: “I broke them.”

Me: “Why?”

Student #2: “I like hers better, so I broke mine so I’d have to throw them out.”

Me: “That is wrong. You do not take things that belong to other people just because you like them better.”

Student #2: “That’s not what my momma told me. She said that because we are poor, it is the job of people who have nicer things than we do to give us their stuff. That is what is fair. So, I broke my crayons because they are not nice, and I took [Student #1]’s crayons because she has to give me what she has if it is nicer, so it is fair.”

Me: “But how do you know how [Student #1] lives? She is in the same neighborhood as we are. Did you think maybe her mommy worked hard to get her those crayons? Is it fair for her mommy to have to buy her more crayons because you want them?”

([Student #1] is from a struggling family who makes a lot of sacrifices so their kids have what they need for school on a regular basis).  

Student #2: “Yup, and that is why she needs to give me them. Her mommy can buy her more crayons. My mommy said it is only fair and I can take what I need in class.”

(I told her she was not to take things that were not hers again and made her return the crayons. I left a message for the main teacher. I came to find out that this student used this excuse to steal things from other students all the time. When the issues were raised to her mother, the answer was, “Well, maybe the other kids should bring in sh**ty things so my kid does not feel bad. If she needs something she can just take it.”)

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(My freshman class is reading “The Odyssey.” I have long been a fan of Greek mythology, so whenever the teacher asks, “Does anyone know what [something] refers to?” I am often the first person to raise my hand and answer.)

Teacher: “Does anyone know what the Labyrinth was?”

Me: *raises hand*

Teacher: “[My Name], how about we give the other students a chance to answer?”

Me: *drops hand*

Teacher: “Well? Does anyone know what the Labyrinth refers to?”

(There is an awkward minute of silence as no one else raises their hand.)

Me: *tentatively raises hand*

Teacher: *sighs heavily and puts his face in his hands* “Go ahead, [My Name].”

(I am teaching a fairly large first-year physics class. After an exam has just been returned, two students visit me during office hours; it’s the first time I’ve seen either of them there all term. Only one speaks; the second student stands silently behind her friend and glares.)

Student #1: “We’ve heard you do re-grades.”

Me: “Sure. Can you show me where you disagree with your scores?”

Student #1: “We don’t disagree with anything specific; we just want a re-grade.”

Me: “Sorry, but there are almost two-hundred students in this class. I can’t just grade everyone’s exam again, but I’ll be glad to discuss any specific questions you have.”

([Student #2]’s glare grows more intense as if she is trying to incinerate me on the spot.)

Student #1: “Well, can’t you just give us some extra points?”

Me: “No. Why would I do that?”

Student #1: “Because we cared enough to come in.”

Me: “All that proves you care about is your grade.”

([Student #2] passes the “Glare Event Horizon.” I’m pretty certain she’s still glaring to this day.)

Student #1: “But you’re supposed to want us to care about our grades!”

I teach at a Montessori school, and one day, I was standing by the classroom door watching and greeting the kids as they left for their next class. As they were walking, a little boy bumped into a little girl and she fell down, landing on her buttocks. This girl is a child who easily cries, and the little boy watched her as her face started to crumble.

Normally, what would happen: the girl would cry and most probably come and complain to me that the little boy pushed her and she fell and got hurt. I could see that it was an honest mistake that the boy bumped into her and in my mind, I had already started thinking about how I was going to handle the situation.

I’m not kidding about what happened next. The little boy looked me straight in the eye and, less than a second later, threw himself down on the floor, landing on his buttocks, as well. He got up, slowly rubbing his back, and went over to the little girl and held out his hand to help her up. He said, “I’m sorry, [Little Girl]. Seems like we bumped into each other. Oh, no!”

The little girl was definitely looking slightly shocked. but she took his hand, got up, dusted herself off, and said, “Oops, sorry!” They walked off, smiling and waving goodbye to me. I was standing there with a stupefied expression, wondering just what the heck had happened.

That little boy is a genius. He avoided a scene and he knew it. This incident took place in literally a few seconds. The intelligence of children never fails to amaze me.

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I am a college professor and my university uses [Educational Software] to check for plagiarism. The program cannot read documents in .pages format — Mac’s word processor — which shouldn’t be a problem because my university offers Word free for students, but since Apple has all kinds of programs to get students their products cheap, most students have Macs. I warn the students in the syllabus, essay prompts, PowerPoints, and verbally in class to not submit essays with .pages because the plagiarism checker can’t read it, but there are always a few that slip through the cracks. When this happens, I give the students a 0 and ask them to resubmit, with no punishment; the 0 is to get the student’s attention since [Educational Software] has an app, and most students have it, so they get notified when a grade is updated.

This last semester, I had a lazy student who frequently came to class late or not at all, and who was missing several assignments. He turned in his first essay as a .pages document by mistake and I gave my typical response; I gave him a 0 and asked him to resubmit, no punishment. He took almost a month to resubmit, but since I had over 120 students that semester, and since I believe in mercy for students, I still didn’t punish him, even though it was well in my rights to do so.

Cue the end of the semester. I warned my students time and time again that I do not accept the final paper late because my school only gives us five days to turn final grades in, and I’m usually finished in three days or less so I can get to my break. Late work is simply not acceptable.

This same student turned his final paper in 20 minutes before it was due… and it was a .pages document. I followed protocol; I gave him a 0, notified him, and asked him to resubmit, which I technically shouldn’t have done because I said no late work. But, as I said, I believe in mercy.

Three days later, I had all the rest of the grades calculated and I still hadn’t heard from this student, nor had he re-submitted his essay. Since he didn’t have a great grade, anyway, I shrugged it off, thinking he just didn’t see it as worth his time. I submitted the class grades, awarding him a failing grade for the missing essay.

Two days later, he emailed me claiming he had only just now gotten my notifications and had re-submitted his paper… twenty minutes after my final grades were supposed to be due, and two days after I had already submitted them. He begged me to grade the essay.

I informed him that not only was his essay now five days late, but I had already turned in grades and I could not change his.

He fired back with, “But final grades weren’t due until today, right? You still have time.”

I still refused, reminding him, again, that grades were already turned in.

Two months into the next semester, he challenged his grade, demanding I grade his very late essay and give him a passing grade. I was seriously annoyed by this point because this meant I had to document everything that had happened and submit it for review, wasting valuable time.

To double-check his end of things and cover all my bases, I downloaded his original submission and used a converter to open the document in Word, to make sure the original submission matched his resubmission. Having a converter still does not make it okay to submit .pages documents — it still can’t be read by [Educational Software] — but at least I could have the document ready for review.

The .pages document, however, came back blank.

I tried two other converters. Still blank. I sent it to my brother-in-law who owns a Mac. Still blank. I tried downloading the .pages document from his first essay to test the converter and I didn’t have any problems converting it.

Then, I smiled gleefully and sent the information to my department chair, along with this note:

“Golly, Dr. [Department Chair], I was just checking to see if these essays matched, and for some reason, the first submission is coming up as a blank document. Can we have our IT guys look into it?”

Apparently, the student thought he could submit a blank essay to give himself extra time to submit the final essay because he thought I couldn’t open it. Needless to say, the student’s request for a grade change was denied and he’s now on academic probation for dishonesty.