Another Day at School

Imagine you're eight and in the second grade. All you had for breakfast was nothing because your mom leaves for her job in the meat processing plant at 6:00 am, and your older sister (twelve) gets you up at 8:00 am, but she doesn't cook breakfast, and there's no food in the kitchen except some candy corn left over from Halloween and a couple of beers your mom's boyfriend left in the fridge (you already know you don't like beer). Oh, yeh, there's a box of Hamburger Helper, but no hamburger meat. Sometimes the lady next door gives you a peanut butter sandwich, but not today. There's also a half-empty jug of milk next to the beer, but it smells bad.

You're in class. The teacher is saying something about fractions, but you feel embarrassed because the growling in your stomach seems louder than her voice. It's almost lunch time. Not that you care, because you didn't bring anything and you don't have any money for the cafeteria. At this point, which would be the best thing to help you focus on your schoolwork? A wall poster listing the Ten Commandments, or a free breakfast?

 

Cheating is Hard Work

When I was in college I had a 4.0 GPA. I'm not a genius! The main difference between me and the guys who flunked out was that I paid attention in class, and I studied.

Once in algebra class, after a big test, everyone was comparing grades. Most of the people around me had scores below 60. Mine was 85. One guy asked me how I did it. I explained to him that I had spent approximately 16 hours studying. "Well then, you deserve it," he said. He looked very sad, though. I think he had been hoping I would reveal some magic trick that anyone could do. Actually, that's what it was.

Later, when I became a teacher, I noticed there were many students who believed the only way they could get good grades was by cheating. They would put a lot of energy into devising clever ways of cheating. Sometimes they got away with it, but in the long run they did not do well, because they didn't learn much. They were never able to pass the carefully proctored final exams.

If only they had taken all the time, effort, and ingenuity that went into cheating and used it for actual studying, they would have easily graduated with honors. Instead they had to take classes over, and some never graduated.

 

Not Too Late

Although CSUN has closed applications for lower-division students wishing to enter in the fall, it is still accepting them for upper-division transfer students. Students are strongly urged to use the “easy” online application system. It requires filling out page after page of information. As I neared the end, an error on their part (yes, really) prevented me from completing the process. So I printed out the paper application (8 pages of application, 9 pages of additional paper-wasting material) and will be mailing it promptly.