Yesterday a fellow educator and friend called me and left me a message regarding the policy on plagairism. We both work in the same school district, but she teaches at the elementary level and I teach high school. Her daughter attends a college prepatory high school (where all the classes are honors or AP) and their policy on plagairism is as follows: The first time you are caught, you get a warning and an 'F' on the assignment. The second time, you get an 'F' for the trimester. So my friend thought that was a bit strict. Her exact words were "Kids cheat, so what?" Now, I was a bit appalled by this. This is why many kids have such low standards regarding education. I tried to explain to her that I am not sure of the exact policy, but since this is a college prep school, they are trying to get the students prepared for college. A lot of colleges have strict guidelines regarding plagairism. Some schools place students on academic probation for a quarter/semester whereas others expel the students.
Many people don't believe plagairism is such a big deal, but it is(just ask some of the people here who have been victimized. First, it speaks to your character. It tells people that you lack integrity and will do whatever it takes to get by. Secondly, it shows that you are unable to think for yourself and you have to rely on others. Lastly, I believe it proves that you are not as smart as you think you are. If you believe the teacher or others will be convinced that you wrote the paper, you are sadly mistaken.
Nevertheless, my friend was complaining about the school and the policy. She also stated that her daughter was unhappy there and wanted to transfer. When I asked her what school was she thinking about transferring her to, she mentioned all college prep schools. Maybe she doesn't know it's not that simple to get her daughter into another college prep school, especially if there is a speculation of plagairism. She may be able to get her into her neighborhood school, but there is a reason she opted not to do that in the first place. All schools are not created equal.
As I listened to my friend, I thought how ignorant are you and your child. You don't realize that this school is trying to build character in your child and teach her the correct way to do a paper and you are fighting them on it. Since your child is not willing to be challenged, you want her to go somewhere else. What does she think is going to happen if she gets into another college prep school? Does she actually believe her child is going to do better? She is going to take that same bad habit with her to her new school.
I was so glad when we finished talking because I was beginning to get upset. I couldn't believe another educator was upset because a teacher was trying to prepare her child for life. I want teachers to hold my child to a higher standard. I don't want them or her to be mediocre. It's parents like that who have set their child(ren) up to fail.
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Paul Fornale
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I'm so damned glad my daughter is now in college. Professors don't, for the most part, play games. They give asignments, expect them completed in the manner they describe in their syllabus, by the date stated and if you don't, it's your tail that pays the piper.
Fortunately, my wife left her carreer when my duaghter was born almost 21 years ago and stayed home with my daughter, so through jr high and 2 years of high school we placed her in an on-line school sponsored by the school district here. All her classes were Web-based interactive classes and she only needed to be physically present 1/2 day per week. She did so well with that curriculum that she was accepted into a program they have in Nevada for achieving students wherein you attend high school at one of the state's college campuses, gathering high school credits and college credits simultaneously.
Three smesters after she graduated high school, she earned her associate's degree in Anthropology and is pursuing her bachelor's degree in the same field.
Schools are certainly living up to the vision of Ralph Waldo Emerson; "that perhaps the true genius will be left in the shadows of the mass-produced educated and that the opportunity to nurture the genius will therefore be missed. Those who attend school because that is what is expected will be less approachable and less interested. They will be disruptive and require the teacher to focus on becoming a disciplinarian rather than an educator."
If teachers aren't worried that students are cheating, we, as I have felt for many years, need to overhaul our system so that teachers, such as yourslef, can truly teach and leve politics behind.
RATED for education.
...translation: No matter the challenge, you produce results?
2. Secondly, it shows that you are unable to think for yourself and you have to rely on others.
...translation: You acknowledge your limits and are humble enough to steal from others?
3. Lastly, I believe it proves that you are not as smart as you think you are. If you believe the teacher or others will be convinced that you wrote the paper, you are sadly mistaken.
...not true, I'm afraid. And even if it weren't, most teachers don't keep their grade books in off-shore safety deposit boxes where they're safe at semester's end.
Either way, keep educating 'em. Yours is the most important and noble profession in the land, despite that your pay scale probably does not reflect it.
And if you run into a cheating little bastard like I was, don't stop at flunking him. It'll never work. He will win...I always won. Instead, take him out back with the rest of the faculty and gang beat him with chalk board erasers until he sneezes his evil little cheat sheets out all over the blacktop. It's the only way. Honest.
Either way: Rated
And I completely agree that it is irritating when people pull the old "but they're a teenager, of course they'll do this" line. My rule is that teenagers should be held to adult standards in order to prepare them for adulthood, not coddled as kids in some last-ditch effort to avoid responsibility. People should not confuse explanations with justifications; age may explain bad action but does not justify it.
And community should do a better job of reinforcing community standards or soon we'll have none. Some of this came from the fact that we used to have some fairly silly community standards, but the right correction is to improve the standards, not to say that there is nothing someone should be held to account for. Laws can only cover a certain number of things, and beyond that, issues of honor and shame should do a great deal more. The fact that people have less shame these days is probably what allows someone to get millions of dollars in bonuses while others are being laid off or losing their life savings...
But I also had a student I caught plagiarizing. I confronted him and he denied it, even when I produced proof. It didn't matter - I flunked him on the assignment. He stopped coming to class, so flunked other tests and assignments. I kept expecting a drop slip from him but never got one. He missed so much that his final grade was an F. At the end of the year I received a notification that he was contesting his grade. His grandfather came to the school to plead on his behalf. He waited for me outside of my classroom and asked me to reconsider. I said even if I reconsidered the F for the plagiarism, what were we to do about missing all the other tests and assignments - he just gets a free pass b/c he is now somehow a 'victim' of his own thievery? The grandfather asked me to pass his grandson as a personal favor to him because the boy was 'troubled'.
The VP of Student Affairs asked me to pass the kid with a C and I refused - I couldn't do it when I considered all the kids who actually worked hard for their Cs. The school gave it to him anyway. The whole thing still makes me feel despair.
And back to the point Olga was making about cheating, people have cheated for many years. But we have bred a society that tolerates it. What Nixon did was so much smaller than what's been done since, and yet there was outrage then. Now with all Bush has done there are shrugs and Obama isn't sure it's worth pursuing legally. It's all part of the same system.
@ Pablo, the sad part about flunking students who are in high school is many of the don't care anyway.
@dustbowldiva, I think America on a whole lacks integrity. Many people will cheat, lie or scam to get ahead in life.
@DeliaBlack, I understand why/how an educator leaves the field. It is crazy and ALL the responsibility always comes back to the teacher.
@Kent, I think the major problem with a lot of adults is they don't think anyone should challenge their children to be better individuals. I think as a nation wehave become used to mediocrity. If we don't begin to hold students to a higher standard, we are setting them up for failure. What happens when they get a job or go to college.
@sandra, It's sad to know at the collegiate level grades are still being changed.
@ Cindy, it is horrible when the administration suppoerts cheating. I guess sports are more important than learning.
I recall in school that the proper way to cite someone or something you read was indescribably complicated. (There are entire style guides for footnotes and citations.) There is also a stigma attached to people who think like someone else has already thought or who speak like someone else has already spoken; suddenly they are not authentic. I wonder if we changed our approach to education on this topic if it would resolve itself.
I often find the meaning of "plagiarism" closely linked to "precedent."
For example, we rely on others all the time to jump-start our brains into thinking certain ways and to prove our thoughts substantive ... it's the only way attorneys make a living, after all. The idea of precedent isn't new, but perhaps the idea of precedent hasn't been communicated effectively to our youth, because an intrinsic part of precedent is respect for the person who set it (or thought it or said it or wrote it).
@emma, my cousin had a similar story as it relates to deans. She was teaching at this techinical college and the dean or admissions counselor (someone who realized the number of dollars these students were bringing in) told her and her colleagues to do whatever it takes to push or pull the kids through. They weren't concerned about learning, just the dollars.
I agree with you about the so-called educators who think cheating is okay. I was at a party over the holidays and there were quite a few educators there. Towards the end of the night there were two ladies discussing college. One of the ladies has a child in college and the educator lady told her friend that she always managed to find the smart kids to sit next to in class to cheat off of them. Her theory was a "D" is better than an "F". Now, this is an educator.