More rain

It's raining again here in the Twin Cities. We had thunderstorms earlier and there will be more later on. Our rain barrel is full, so the extra water will be running off onto the patio.

Big Boy had an Americorps interview in Minneapolis this morning. Apparently, 30% of the people that this agency serves are Russian, so his language skills would be an asset. Keep your fingers crossed!

I ran 6 this morning before it started raining. Ave HR 143, pace 10:20. About half a mile from home, we pass the lake again, and Sky likes to stop and jump in the water and get a drink. Well, good dog! There were two $5 bills on the rock just before you jump in the lake. There wasn't anyone around fishing or anything that early in the morning, so I got paid ten bucks for running today.

We head to school tomorrow to argue with little boy's counselor and an assistant principal about his English grade. Mr. EnglishTeacher hasn't been fond of little boy all year, beginning first semester when he failed little boy on a substantial team project because the person who had custody of the project handed it in a day late. I asked Mr. EnglishTeacher about this during fall conferences, you know, how about giving the kids half credit (it was a really good project) or penalizing the one who turned it in late, not the other two kids. No dice. He told me, "Well, if he works really hard the rest of the semester, he can probably get a C." So instead of getting an A- for first semester, little boy had a final grade of C-.

Second semester, things went much better, little boy laid low and turned in good work. He had an A going into the final two projects. Mr. EnglishTeacher and Ms. Counselor called me up last week accusing little boy of plagiarizing his final paper. Mr. EnglishTeacher then admitted that he never read beyond page 5 (of a 12 page paper) and was giving little boy a zero. He also said, "I'm not getting overturned on THIS one!" as though he'd been overruled before after hastily accusing a 10th grader of cheating.

I ran little boy's paper through this and it came up with a 4.5% plagiarism percentage. I then ran a work finance memo through the same detector and it got a 44.6% score. I looked at one of the sources that little boy used, and yes, there are three sentences in the first paragraph that he just rewrote. The structure is similar to the outline he saw on a website.

The paper assignment said that they were to use MLA format. I asked little boy how much classtime had been spent on MLA format. Zero. Well, how about a text on this particular format? None. What did Mr. EnglishTeacher have to say about his other papers, not in MLA format, that were turned in? He got As on them. Now, me, I don't know a thing about MLA format. I'm a lawyer. We Bluebook everything.

I quizzed little boy about how much time had been spent in class explaining what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. Zero. It hasn't been discussed. School policy defines plagiarism as the intentional or unintentional use of material or ideas that are not your own. I'm sorry, unintentional use of ideas that aren't your own?? You're going to give a kid a zero on a major project for something unintentional? How many completely original ideas have you had lately? About 19th century Russian literature? Furthermore, little boy is more math & chemistry oriented than English & languages. What do you do in math? Memorize formulas & spit them back for the test. How about chemistry? Anyone remember memorizing the periodic table in high school? Uh huh, me too.

I think a more accurate charge would be inadequate sourcing. According to school policy, he should have to rewrite the paper and take a class in citation.