Daughter takes a stand over plagiarism

As you may, or may not, know...we have taught our kids to stand up for themselves, and for what is right. When they were younger we had to do much of this for them, but slowly began to have them help, and gradually learn how to do it on their own.

Yesterday I received a call from one of our daughters that she had to meet with a teacher after school. She had planned to stay after anyway, but because of this last minute meeting she was unable to do the strength & endurance training session. Ok, so far I'm on board, but I'm wondering why this meeting was so important.

She had to do a group project for this class. Now I don't know about you or your kids, but all 3 of ours HATE 99% of group projects. Because our kids do their very best, others in their group assume they can slack off. Or they are just natural slackers to begin with. Either way it is very annoying and disruptive. I knew about this project that was started this week, and knew my daughter was doing her fair share of the work, without being taken advantage of. The last night, 2 of the 4 girls were supposed to put the final paper together. At the beginning of class yesterday our daughter decides to look at the final paper before it is handed in. The girls didn't use much of her notes, but instead used sentences from the book...word for word! Plagiarism at it's best! Our daughter was immediately alarmed and spoke with the teacher briefly, & then set up the meeting. He thought her coming forward was brave, and earned even more respect from him. She even told him that she would rather take the chance of a lower grade, then be accused of plagiarism.

We've had the discussion on plagiarism with our children repeatedly. It started in Elementary school. These kids are Sophomores in High School. One of these girls has gotten caught by this teacher for plagiarism earlier in the year. What is she thinking??? In college they will kick you out if you are caught for plagairism! I honestly hope these 2 girls are given severe penalties.

I'm very proud our daughter stood up for herself, and what is right :-)