Incoherent Babble

You know, something odd occurred to me the other day. I was sitting on my bed reading for Psychology, when I suddenly remembered something from wwwaaayyy back in High School.

In my Junior year, I was taking English 3 Honors. Every week, our teacher would give us a set of 20 vocabulary words out of our book, as well as a list of varying lengths that she randomly picked each day. In any given week, we would have to memorize anywhere between 20 and 80 words, to be tested on 10 each Friday. This is in no way an unusual occurrence, I’m sure (although the volume may be a bit more than most are used to), however, it did spur us to seek “alternative means of success”, shall we say?

This success came in the form of some “Helpful Study Aides”, if you will. No, not quite your typical vocabulary flash card? While they were cards, they weren’t exactly used for studying. Every week, I would print up small cards with each word and a short 1 to 3 word definition of it, which would nicely hide under a piece of notebook paper and show through just enough to read the definitions you needed. What started out as two friends helping each other raise their grade to a passing level soon grew into a vast cheating conspiracy.

At its peak, out of a total of approximately 70 students in 2 English classes, I was distributing 50+ copies of these cards each week. People would walk up to me at lunch and just stand beside my table and say “3″ or “5″. I would glance around, reach into the back pocket of my backpack and pull out the number of cards they needed and slide them across the table to them. It was so amazing how popular they became, without any of the teachers or administrators ever actually finding out. It was like a drug ring. If I’d been charging even $1 for each card, I’d have been rich by the end of the semester.

Unfortunately, the empire went through a drastic reduction. Apparently the teacher got a little wise to my friend and I cheating (since we did, after all, do it less than 3 feet in front of her desk)and one week she abruptly got up and ripped the papers off our desks and sent us outside and then down to the principle’s office. We were told that we’d be excluded from any grade-related honors and kicked out of the Beta Club, in addition to our parents being notified. As it turns out, it was obviously just a scare tactic. We were never excluded from anything, weren’t kicked out, and our parents never found out a word about it.

Just one of the “interesting” experiences of my Junior year in High School. Most of my other experiences aren’t pleasant enough to remember or repeat, but there are smatterings of interesting experiences that I’ll remember for a lifetime (obviously).

Note: This story is absolutely 100% true and from my real life experiences. Fear my uber cheating abilities and watch for a story on some of my other cheating adventures!!