My dear Petcies:
Now I know better the nature of deceit---not thoroughly, but from the role of a deceiver, a role I've always held in the cruelest contempt. Some of you, unknowingly, have participated today in an (originally unintended by me) interactive play.
It began with my wanting to be playful, so I bothered dear friend Ken, asking him in ValleyGirlSpeak to explain his latest poem. He surprised me by answering completely seriously! I figured he was being "tongue in cheek," and I also thought how wonderful if some student Petcies were "hearing" his explanation, so I continued my role, at last asking for his sympathy by making up the story of my getting an F on a poem in class. I had, by that time, thoroughly taken on the role of a gutsy "underdog"---a misunderstood Goth Girl.
Once again, a surprise: so many of you registered your compassion with "my" situation! I kept relishing that, and thanking each of you---and not wanting it to stop!
But now it has stopped, although at every step of the unfolding drama I had hoped that some students could know your emailed kindnesses and explanations---and I still wish that they could. I'm a recently retired teacher of English to adults of various ages and ethnicities, in the City Colleges of Chicago. I know, therefore, something of plagiarism---sometimes realizing it "after the fact" and sometimes coming down too hard on the student---but seldom understanding the subtleties of the situations, unfortunately.
I don't have purple hair or wear nose rings, I'm not taking a POMES FER DUMMIES course, and I don't stack stock in the aisles at Best Buy. And now I can return to my mainest obsession: writing my play on Shakespear the woman.
I want to thank you for your warm, patient, instinctively generous responses---and for your being clear channels from the Source of greatest compassion.
Judy Prince
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