Education
Give Me an A!
All I wanted was a job to make ends meet, but along the way I turned into a one-woman term-paper factory.
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The paper that most tried my creative skills was a referral from Calvin. Sheila needed an analysis of how growing up Jewish in a gentile community had affected her life. Having myself grown up in a solid Irish-Catholic neighborhood, I took on the paper as a test of my true aspiration to become an award-winning fiction writer. I called upon my memory to recount all the Jewish-experience books I’d ever read. I took myself back to seventh grade, when I attended my friend Erica’s bas mitzvah. As Sheila, I contended that it was not an easy way to grow up, but one that taught me many valuable lessons. I got a B plus.
Whenever I revealed the true nature of S&M’s services to curious friends, the question invariably arose, “Can’t you get in trouble?” Scrutiny of the university’s plagiarism policy led me to doubt that. The policy requires students to do their own work, but outside sources are allowed. I told myself that if I was ever found out, I could explain that I considered my manuscripts to be mere monographs—background material that the students could use as they saw fit. What I couldn’t understand was the students’ lack of concern. Once I was asked to write five papers for the same class. Not only that, but every student handed me an identical set of photocopied notes. I warned each student that the wording might sound similar in at least a few instances. I strongly suggested that they have the papers retyped so at least the print would look different. No one complained, and no one got caught.
After writing papers for money grew boring and frustrating, I decided to stop. I wish I could say that the reason was the lack of honor, but it was more the lack of sleep. I felt like some caffeine-driven madwoman pulling perpetual all-nighters. But when I moved and changed my phone number, students found me. They begged me. Money became no object. Reluctantly, I continued. Nazi Germany, capital punishment, AIDS, abortion—stuff that sometimes interested me but that always had to be examined in an unsatisfying and unsophisticated way. There were times I would drink more than a couple of beers before starting, in hopes that my work would attain the appropriate level of intellect and learning for a nineteen-year-old.
I realized that I had become a sort of expert—not in any subject, but in college-speak. I could create what appeared to be a well-thought-out piece on almost any topic. Let’s say I wanted to analyze my son’s favorite book, Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop. I could present seven surefire papers on this masterwork: Christian influence (the image of three fish in a tree and its relevance to the Trinity); sexual ethics (Mr. Brown, eating suspiciously phallic snacks, leaves his wife to cavort with Mr. Black); death imagery (Is Mr. Black actually a dark symbol of death that befalls those seeking unconventional sex?); sexism (Why do the brothers and father read while mother stands by mute?); racism (Mr. Brown and Mr. Black as indicators of interracial relationships); philosophical pondering (When Will goes uphill, does the hill become his property? Would Locke argue that this path leads away from happiness?); and finally, good versus evil (The children claim that it is fun to hop on Pop. Pop says, “Stop, you must not hop on Pop!” Who is right?). Any—better yet, all—of these thoughts sandwiched between opening and closing paragraphs that say exactly the same thing in slightly altered ways would, I guarantee, net me at least a C, often a B.
What does this say about our institutions of higher learning? I used to think American school systems were excellent. I loved school and did well, smothered in teacher approval. But education had failed the students I saw. Most didn’t give a damn about English, philosophy, or history. Partying and fashion aesthetics were their priorities. My clients rarely cracked a book.
It seems obvious that students who get enough individual attention and who come to love reading learn more in school and on their own. The problem with a place like UT—the reason I could write five papers for one class and not get caught—is that hundreds of students are often crammed into one-hour sessions with a professor who never bothers to learn a name or a face. Teaching assistants (students themselves) grade papers and offer what little one-on-one contact occurs. The pleasure of learning for me always lay in direct interaction with the teacher. Personal banter stimulated me and inspired me to seek further information on my own. My clients had no idea how to relate to a professor. When I realized how many students do poorly because they lack the ability to catch on quickly and have no one to help them, it was, as we English majors say, an epiphany.
These days, the message is that you need a degree to get a job. And you need passing grades to get a degree. It’s not written anywhere that you need knowledge or even common sense. Many professors use the same reading assignments and the same lectures year after year and get away with it. Colleges often resem- ble factories that pump out students who have no working knowledge of their major.
When S&M Ink first opened, I tried to rationalize why I shouldn’t feel guilty about helping others cheat. But I knew my real reason was something very basic: the survival instinct. Tutoring was something that I could do to provide my family with extravagant things in life, such as food, shelter, and an occasional batch of clean laundry. In retrospect, I believe that maybe I did some good too. I’m convinced that some of my clients learned more about how to analyze literature and history from discussing their assignments with me and going over the papers that I wrote for them than they learned from their bored, impersonal professors.
I can already hear angry voices accusing me of contributing to the problems in education. They’ll say those who sell papers are not simply cheating the system, they’re cheating other students. They’ll say people like me are scum. But I can think of worse offenses. I’ll remind myself of all the lousy teaching going on at colleges everywhere and the scholarships offered not for brain power but rather muscle power. Finally, I’ll think about my brother-in-law the cop and his response when I complained about a speeding ticket. He said, “People like you always think cops should be out catching rapists. And rapists think they should concentrate on murderers.” Maybe murderers think cops ought to be after serial killers. It’s an interesting idea. I bet it would make a swell paper.
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My Library
