lagache@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Edouard Lagache) (07/23/88)
In article <4513@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> narten@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas Narten) writes: <Much deleted> > >Cheating is a matter of ethics; it is a "big deal". > <More deleted> >Moral of the story: it's relatively easy to catch cheaters; the hard >part is figuring out what to do with them once they're in your office. >-- >Thomas Narten >narten@cs.purdue.edu or {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!purdue!narten Perhaps the reason why it is hard to figure out what to do with the students is because the ethical standards that you wish to uphold are in fact no longer supported by the society at large. While I very much wish to support your stand, I see little point in trying to turn students around after years of being allowed to do "what it takes" to succeed. Jean Lave's work on the social interactions in the classroom suggest an interesting mold to cast this problem in. She spent some months studying a grade school math class, and concentrated on one "work table" of students. She saw that while students and teachers alike would both swear that they were learning from the teacher (when interviewed by the researchers), the fact of the matter was that the students were learning from each other far more than from the teacher. Our society has all sorts of "Okay" hypocrisies. For example, when asked in casual conversation "how are you doing", the appropriate reply is "Okay", or "Alright" etc. (even if you just lost the love of your life the day before). If students are asked why they are in school, they will reply "to learn about the world", "to become well rounded" etc. Why are they really there? To succeed, period. Even in kindergarten the drive to meet the expectations of parents, teachers, and peers dictates behavior. While cheaters will never admit to cheating, there isn't any real ethical basis in our society to keep them from cheating. You do whatever you can get away with. After all, isn't that how most corporations, government agencies, and even universities are run? A pesimisitic view of life? Perhaps. However, the life of young people is extremely pesimistic these days. They are almost guaranteed a lower standard of living than their parents, a personal life filled with the uncertainties of illdefined role types and grim prospects for long term happyness, and a world that is both hostile and unforgiving. With all that to look forward to, wouldn't you cheat to survive? Under the circumstances, I wouldn't feel very good about throwing out one of my students unless I had made it very clear to the class from day-1 that cheating would not be tolerated and that clearly specified penalties will be doled out to cheaters. Unless students fully understand that the social norms in your class are different than society's at large, then is some sense you have no right to prosecute. Terrible? You bet. Go ahead and add it to the list of 30 billion other problems that must be solved. Edouard Lagache lagache@violet.berkeley.edu
nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (07/25/88)
In article <25189@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, lagache@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Edouard Lagache) writes: > > Jean Lave [...] > saw that while students > and teachers alike would both swear that they were learning from > the teacher (when interviewed by the researchers), the fact of the > matter was that the students were learning from each other far more > than from the teacher. > This says a great deal more about the vacuity of our school systems than about the morality of the students. Kids love to learn -- until we force them into school systems that turn off their enthusiasm, and replace it with a need to "get by" -- which often can mean getting a decent grade by memorizing exactly what the teacher said -- and no fair thinking! > Our society has all sorts of "Okay" hypocrisies. For example, > when asked in casual conversation "how are you doing", the > appropriate reply is "Okay", or "Alright" etc. (even if you > just lost the love of your life the day before). Harry Truman, not well-known for hypocrisy, advocated exactly that response, and justified it well: solve your own problems, and don't bellyache about them in hopes society will solve them for you. He did, however, use "all right" as two words, not one. > A pesimisitic view of life? Perhaps. However, the life of > young people is extremely pesimistic these days. They are > almost guaranteed a lower standard of living than their parents, > a personal life filled with the uncertainties of illdefined role > types and grim prospects for long term happyness, and a world > that is both hostile and unforgiving. With all that to look > forward to, wouldn't you cheat to survive? No. You have set up a straw man and knocked him down, and therefore you totally fail to convince. This world, and our society in particular, is the most benign in our solar system. And we are not guaranteed existence as a species, let alone comfort. So what? Life is a bitch, and then you die? Not if you have any real passion for something -- as most students have. It is a quality of youth that sometimes gets lost in the aging process. But this has little to do with "cheating." Academics often get lost in their own little world of classes, students and grades. They sometimes forget the obvious: that grades are a totally artifical goal set up so we can pretend to measure the unmeasurable -- how much a student learned. And we get annoyed when a student finds a better way to get that bogus accolade without memorizing what we tell them to memorize. We call it "cheating." But who is cheated? Who is the "victim" of this "crime?" Only the students who come to a university, pay to get an "education," and leave as ignorant as when they arrived. I think this is stupid, but I can't find it heinous. And when we can learn to coax students into thinking, rather than into memorizing facts, we will begin to do the job we're being paid for -- and we'll stop cheating our society. -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {backbones}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather@astro.as.utexas.edu
dab@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak) (07/27/88)
> >But who is cheated? Who is the "victim" of this "crime?" Only the >students who come to a university, pay to get an "education," and >leave as ignorant as when they arrived. WRONG! The victim(s) are all those whose degree is devalued by this person's unacceptable manner of getting through the course. The reputation of the department/school is also affected by the students who have a degree from that school. We all suffer when students succeed in academic dishonesty. Now I haven't read all the discussion that has been going on here, so the above may be restating what others have said. Also, I provide the following reference risking duplication of someone else's posting. H. T. Jankowitz Detecting Plagiarism in Student Pascal Programs _The Computer Journal_ Volume 31, Number 1, 1988 pages 1-8 A great paper! dave bozak SUNY College at Oswego dab@rocky.oswego.edu