I had to inform a couple of young men that they had failed the lab due to cheating today. I had expected them to be inexperienced freshman...instead they are seniors expecting to graduate in May that need this one-credit course to do so. One of them was angry at me, almost violently so. The other one was just angry at himself. You could see the pain and anger in both sets of eyes.

Each of these young men (and there is a third lab partner I've yet to meet with) received warnings and zeroes on labs earlier in the semester, and they STILL turned in photocopies of each other's work at this point. They left me no choice. I'm being as lenient as I can be...I'm not marking them as cheaters on their official transcripts. They'll just receive a failing grade.

It's hard for me to hurt people, even if they might deserve it. After they left my office, I cried.

Damn them.