Wednesday, December 10, 2003

overheard

A rule-of-thumb for telling whether or not students are lying when they say that their grandmother died, that they had a car wreck, etc., as a reason for missing a deadline or an exam: "If they're crying, they're lying." I suspect this may be a little harsh, although there may be a tendency for fabricators to overdo the emotion-thing. Teaching hordes of freshmen can quickly harden one's heart for the reported misfortunes of others.

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