Where Do Such People Come From?

In my language class there is such a thing as an oral exam. Students go to the lab, record their responses to the activities, save them in an audio-file, and send the file to me by email. For those who don't know how to attach a file to an email (yep, such people do exist), I provide a flash drive where they can record their audio files. 

Last Monday was the last day when students could do the exam. On Tuesday, I went to the lab to collect the flash drive with the exam and discovered that it had mysteriously disappeared together with the midterm oral exams of five students that were recorded on it. 

Of course, when the class started, I asked the students if one of them had taken the flash drive by mistake. Nobody had any idea where the flash drive was. I interrogated people who worked at the lab, they looked everywhere, the flash drive was not to be found. You can imagine how it made me feel to find myself in a situation where five midterms disappeared. Exams are always my responsibility whether they are done in the classroom or in the lab. The five students whose exams were lost also were not enjoying the situation. The lab workers felt horrible. The person supervising the lab workers (and a good friend of mine) felt even more horrible. 

So on Thursday I come back to class and tell the students that, unfortunately, the flash drive hasn't been recovered and their exams are lost. At which point, a student gets up, saunters lazily to my desk, throws the missing flash drive on it and says, "Oh, here it is. I took it home last week." The five students whose exams she dragged home in such a cavalier manner looked at her in angry and mute astonishment. 

I was livid, people. I immediately assigned an activity to the class and left the classroom. I knew that I had to take a walk, have a drink of water, do some breathing exercises before I could return to the classroom and be sure that I would not inflict any harm on this horribly inconsiderate student.

I mean, where do such people even come from? She takes the flash drive home (something which I expressly told students not to do), fails to show up for class next week, and doesn't even write an email to inform me that MY flash drive that contains exams belonging to five OTHER people is in her possession. It later turned out that she recorded an empty file instead of her own exam, so all this was for nothing. 

In the seven minutes that I was away from the classroom trying to get myself together, the students whose exams were on the flash drive must have had a talk with the student who took it home. When I came back, her cavalier attitude was gone, and she was weepy and apologetic. If this doesn't teach her a lesson, then I don't know what will. 

It is mind-boggling how rude and inconsiderate some people are. 

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