I'm smarter than you're.

I wish I could dance.
Lord, when I get to heaven can you please make it so I can dance?

I learned the trick: show up on Thursdays. Attila the Hack doesn't work on Thursdays.

Twice in the last two weeks I've heard from former students who have confessed to sins committed while in one of my classes. I wrote here earlier about the students who had to ask me really dumb questions in class as the payoff for losing bets they'd made over something. Well, this morning it happened again. A student who shall remain anonymous 'fessed up to turning in work that met the technical requirements of the assignment but hadn't been used in the field first, as stipulated. I could tell from their confession and apology that this has been weighing on them since then. The fact they remember it 15 or so years later says it's not a transgression they blew off and forgot about.

I chuckled a couple of seconds after I read that confession. Profs know they're getting duped some of the time. We were students once, too. The college had the appropriate zero tolerance policy for plagiarism and I came down very hard on the two occasions I snagged a student violating that policy. As in kicked out of school for one of them. (How many other times did they get away with it?) But this offense wasn't anywhere near that level, and while it was deceptive it didn't violate the core principles of the academic setting like plagiarism does.

In my response I told this individual about something Pam and I have experienced as parents now that our kids are adults. From time to time over the years they've confessed to having played us when they were younger. "Remember that time when...." and then we get the rest of the story, the part they kept hidden from us because it would have meant serious discipline. Totally pulled the wool over our eyes.

I have the same reaction when I hear those stories from our kids as I had after reading this morning's confession. For an instant I'm bothered that I got played by a punk kid (or college student), but I quickly think about the relationship we have now, a relationship open and close enough that they tell us those kinds of things. That's a trade-off I'll take in half a heartbeat. I was a pretty strict parent and a pretty strict prof because I thought (think) that's best for the kids/students. But that job is now done and I value more than I can express the bond I now enjoy with my kids and (most of) my former students. When they confess to pulling the wool over my eyes it makes me grin at a ruse well played - even if I was the mark - and smile at the joy of a relationship that allows for the confession.

I'm blessed.