The Best Answer is: It Depends

By Cindy Reitzi

April 2004

Many years back I was taking a test called the Teacher Perceiver, an instrument that school districts use to determine good teachers without actually observing them in classrooms.

Let’s just say that – like getting my driver’s license – it took me twice to “pass.”

What the Perceiver considered a dilemma scenario – a student complains your class is boring – was a mild occasion compared to real dilemmas in education – a student plagiarizes a paper, or a student confesses contemplating suicide in a journal assignment. However, what I learned in the process was that the best answer to any sticky situation is “…it depends.”

Certain teaching issues don’t stray into the dilemma zone since they are unambiguous. A rule or policy makes the decision for me. It’s easy. There’s no “gray zone” – at least on the surface. But give me the contexts, motives, and the whys and then I have to make a “real” decision and think hard about it, usually within limited timeframes. I hate that.

I already have to make 300 teaching decisions a day ranging from “Can I get a drink of water?” to three students persisting, “Ms. Reitzi, Ms. Reitzi, we need help,” to “Does this paragraph sound all right?” I love my students, but by the time I’m done with a typical school year, my brain is echoing and I’m looking for the nearest wilderness.

To get to the bottom of a dilemma, you need to delve below the surface. Unfortunately, many teachers feel they don’t always have enough time to do that.

Invariably, my stickier dilemmas arise during high-stress grading periods. It’s crunch time. I have piles of papers to grade and progress reports to get out.

Like the time I spotted a couple plagiarists: a cheater and an accomplice. On the surface, this was one of the dumber forms of plagiarism from two 12th graders. Both students were in my writing class the previous semester, so I knew the accomplice’s writing style well -- it was distinctive with lots of voice. So when I read the cheater’s paper, it sounded like an echo. Since we had a plagiarism policy established, I had no qualms with crime and punishment paradigms under the circumstances. Without hesitation, I gave these clowns zeroes. The cheater came to me to plead for his friend and proposed taking full responsibility. Noble, but futile. I referred him to his principal.

The principal listened better than I did. The student told her that he was 18, stressed out, living on his own, and in danger of not graduating (granted, partly due to some unhelpful habits of his). So his principal passed the information on to me.

I have learned over the years to scratch below the surface. If it seems too simple, it probably isn’t. Sigh. That changed the context and how I defined the dilemma. Before it was a simple, unambiguous case of cheating; now, it becomes a misguided attempt to help a friend cope with a difficult situation. It’s still wrong. It’s still cheating. But the context shifts. It’s sort of like shoplifting. To me, there’s a major difference between shoplifting to feed your child and lifting something because, like Mount Everest, it was there. Same crime, different motives.

Still, as is the nature of conundrums, even though my punishment remained the same, it redefined future choices and contexts. I pulled the cheater aside, and suggested, “I think I understand why you did this, but in future, come talk to me before you get desperate.” He nodded wryly. To be continued…

Some years back, one student was arriving tardy fairly regularly to first hour. Normally, chronic tardiness annoys me, and I feel charged to “do something” about it, but this young woman comported herself in a way that didn’t fit the “chronic tardy” profile. She displayed none of the “I’ve been here too long to follow the rules” of some second-semester seniors. Not only that, but when she did come in late it was minus the typical “I’ve arrived” fanfare. She sat down quietly and got straight to work. I was puzzled, but I dutifully marked her tardy.

Finally, she told me, matter-of-factly, that her mother worked third shift so she had to watch her younger siblings until mom came home in the morning. If her mother came home late from work, my student came late to school.

Scratch beneath the surface and sometimes it is simpler than it seems. This was no “gray zone” dilemma. This one was easy. I stopped marking her tardy. Her life was complicated enough.

Posted March 19, 2004