the Sophomores

Today in my second period sophomore New Testament class, we reviewed for a short quiz that they would take at the end of class on the books of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. When the time came to take the quiz and after all the pencils were sharpened, people were sitting at their desks with a piece of blank paper, and everything else was put away, I began to read each question slowly out loud to the class. Three of my students refused to even take the quiz, which isn’t surprising because they refuse to do the class work too. One of those students, however, proceeded to say out loud the answer to each question. He wasn’t even taking the quiz for himself, but it was out of complete disrespect and spite towards me. I was sooooooooooooo angry. I could physically feel my blood boiling and in as calm a voice as I could muster I said, “The Bible tells us that when we are tempted to sin we need to flee from that sin. You need to leave my class right now. Leave. Now. So that I will not sin.” He did eventually leave. The Holy Spirit almost instantaneously took away my anger and gave me calm and I was allowed to continue. Unfortunately, he did come back to class but at least he was quiet and my anger removed.

Please, pray for both of us. Pray for wisdom for me. His name is Mori-M.

Cheating happens ALL THE TIME in my class and it is SO FRUSTRATING. How can they learn if they cheat? How can they pass the class if they cheat? If I give zeros to people every time they cheat probably one third of my class would not be able to pass. Even now, I’m failing six of my sophomores. They refuse to do their class work. They refuse to listen. They can’t get points for doing nothing. They can’t pass quizzes and tests they’ve never done any work or studied for. I just don’t know what to do.