I want to be a social worker, to help kids, Maria says to me outside of the Engl 201A classroom as we're both waiting for the English instructor to show up and start lecture.
She's almost to the point of tears as she tells me that the English instructor accused her of plagiarism, even though she told him "to google it" (her paper) to check. He brought up the charge that she had not turned in a work that came from her own words.
While she admitted to me that she had originally written the essay in Spanish, and then had help in translating, she is adamant that those are her sentences and paragraphs and ideas.
If she fails Engl 201A, she tells me, she will lose her financial aid, which not only provides for her registration dues, but also helps with child care--and she has five children to take care of. Her family is in Mexico, and they cannot help her out.
Maria is also working while managing four college classes.
Hearing her story, I didn't have any great advice. I did respond that she should talk to the English instructor--I want to tell her that he is a kind and understanding person, but I don't. I also inform her that if she did lose her financial aid, there is always an appeal process to get it back. And that I had to go through that same succession of steps myself because I did not pass enough of my classes to normally qualify (I provided documentation of my disability and a short letter explaining about how I'm all better now and ready to return to college--and the decision was overturned, and I got my money).
I did have to write the English instructor an email (and yes, those emails add up, I have an almost innumerable amount from him in my inbox) about the oral presentations, so I decided to include in that letter a quick word about Maria. I told him that while I knew he couldn't discuss other students with me, I wanted to say that Maria seemed to be "sincere in her attempts to be successful in this class" (thereby indirectly vouching that she didn't cheat).
If I had knowledge that a student was cheating in either of my classes (Engl 201A or Engl 201B), I would immediately inform the appropriate professor as I have no qualms about being "a rat." I have no loyalties to the other students.
But Maria seems to be particularly distressed, and while I cannot relate to her situation when dealing with racism for being a Mexican American, I can relate to her feelings of alienation and despondency. My coursework matters to me too despite the difficulties I face every day in class.
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