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smg0148 Hours on one of the Discovery Channels did a piece on cheating at a Kansas high school. I vaguely remember when this all happened. The teacher caught out and failed 28 of her students who had plagiarized their reports. The parents got all upset and went to the school board, which overruled the teacher. She resigned immediately.
A couple of quotes from the story:
“Plagiarism is black on this side, white on this side, with a whole lotta gray in the middle,” said another parent.
“She’s uncovered plagiarism,” says a parent. “That’s great, that’s wonderful, let’s give her an attaboy. Let’s stop, put on a seminar, teach these kids exactly what plagiarism is, how to avoid it, and then let them take their new knowledge, go back, and rework their projects and resubmit them. They missed their teachable moment; I truly believe that.” [me: oh, boo hoo!]
Teach them how to avoid plagiarism? It's pretty simple. Don't repeat somebody else's words and call them your own. I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp. This whole idea that plagiarism isn't easy to define keeps surfacing at various kerfuffles reported at fandom_wank lately too. The sense of entitlement and what seems like a growing portion of people who think that copying somebody else's work is acceptable is alarming to me.
I still think school board should be ashamed of itself for not backing the teacher. And the parents who protested are a bunch of whiny crybabies who maybe should have spent some "teachable moments" telling their kids that cheating is wrong rather than reinforcing the actual cheating. I feel bad for the kids that did the projects on their own and wound up having their own grades lowered and devalued.
*ahem* Not that I have strong feelings about this or anything.
A couple of quotes from the story:
“Plagiarism is black on this side, white on this side, with a whole lotta gray in the middle,” said another parent.
“She’s uncovered plagiarism,” says a parent. “That’s great, that’s wonderful, let’s give her an attaboy. Let’s stop, put on a seminar, teach these kids exactly what plagiarism is, how to avoid it, and then let them take their new knowledge, go back, and rework their projects and resubmit them. They missed their teachable moment; I truly believe that.” [me: oh, boo hoo!]
Teach them how to avoid plagiarism? It's pretty simple. Don't repeat somebody else's words and call them your own. I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp. This whole idea that plagiarism isn't easy to define keeps surfacing at various kerfuffles reported at fandom_wank lately too. The sense of entitlement and what seems like a growing portion of people who think that copying somebody else's work is acceptable is alarming to me.
I still think school board should be ashamed of itself for not backing the teacher. And the parents who protested are a bunch of whiny crybabies who maybe should have spent some "teachable moments" telling their kids that cheating is wrong rather than reinforcing the actual cheating. I feel bad for the kids that did the projects on their own and wound up having their own grades lowered and devalued.
*ahem* Not that I have strong feelings about this or anything.
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Date: 2008-03-17 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-03-18 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 02:55 am (UTC)I'm almost ready to make a huge sign for my classroom that says: "Copying = Plagiarism = an F"