After another semester of the usual ups, downs and all-around mix of shenanigans and oddities, the end is actually in sight for the first time. Last Friday I had my final pharmaceutical English class, and thus I now draw closer to this rather interesting chapter of my career as an adjunct faculty member at a Chinese medical college. At this point, there's really little more to do than administer my final examinations this week.
Unfortunately, as much as it bothers me to admit it, I have a history of dealing with cheating and other academically dishonest funny business on my exams. My last round of tests a few months ago in particular were particularly bothersome, as I had several cases where students blatantly passed off their exams to classmates to copy from, and one case where a student got up, walked across the room and handed his test to a friend. Granted, cheating in general is a fairly endemic issue that this nation's educational system struggles with. However, I still can't help but get at least a little frustrated whenever I encounter it during my medical English exams, considering the plain and simple fact all of my tests are open-book.
During my final classes this week, I did my part once again and explained to my classes as best and clearly as I could what would happen if anyone tried anything fishy (probably instant failure), and all the ways I could and have caught students being less-than academically honest (electronic dictionaries, walking across the room and trying to hand their finished test to a classmate, etc). Besides my usual spiel however, I think that this time around I'm going to top everything off with a little something special.
Now if you would, allow me to reminisce a bit here. In middle school, I had a character by the name of Mr. Racine who served as my seventh-grade English teacher. To this day, the man continues to stand out in my mind as an exceptional educational instructor for a wide variety of reasons, but what I continue to remember vividly in particular was his constant use of "Battleaxe" and "Excalibur" in his classroom. Excalibur was a former golf club, whose main purpose was to silence the classroom the moment Mr. Racine reached for it and raised it high in the air. As the name implies, it stood mainly for peace and order in the classroom, similar to what a benevolent king would bestow upon his realm.
The bent piece of metal rebar known as Battleaxe played a different role. Its purpose wasn't to maintain gentle order as much as it was to enforce discipline. While a wave of Excalibur was a simple order for the class to be quiet, an appearance by Battleaxe meant that the teacher's temper was wearing dangerously thin. Also, God help you if Mr. Racine had to bring his fearsome weapon crashing down upon your desk with a mighty crash that would reverberate all throughout the room.
Now why on earth am I suddenly rambling on so much about a class I had nearly a dozen years ago? Well it's quite simple, really; because for next week, I am announcing plans to take a bit of inspiration from my former English teacher to help me maintain a little more academic honesty in my classroom, Battleaxe-style.
It may not be a horrifying, slightly bent metal rod nabbed from a construction site, as was Mr. Racine's weapon of choice. However, it will take only a few sharp taps of this little fellow on a few desks here and there to help keep naughtiness to a minimum during exam-time.
You should just eat the first one you catch cheating as an example for the others.
It would be a nice break from eggs.
Posted by: Chris | 07/03/2012 at 01:08 AM