Archives for the Month of August 2007 on Bill Boyer's Blog
Intellectual Property
While most high school officials would likely contend that their students are taught and constantly reminded about the issues of intellectual property, academic integrity, and cheating, a different lesson is taught when one experiences the deeper workings of the classroom.
Due to the fact that I ended my high school career merely three months ago, the “deeper workings of the classroom” that I mentioned are still very fresh in my mind. Additionally, I can recall the many times that we were warned against the unethical practice of cheating as well as taught the proper way to cite references in papers.
The reaction of many high school students to this lesson is similar to Calvin's:
Despite the efforts of teachers, I can name countless times when I would be sitting in English class and watched as students prepared their cheat sheets for next period's Japanese quiz. Even more prevalent were the students who would cite references in papers, but only around half of the ones they used. Since few, if any, teachers used online tools to check for plagiarism, I never witnessed anyone being caught in the act that I am positive they committed.
As a result of these many offenses against academic integrity, high school students are more likely to learn clever ways of cheating over why it is necessary to cite sources and use their own intelligence.
Although the consequences of these actions are not felt immediately by students who cheat on assignments, retribution does rear its ugly head. These students are merely delaying the point at which they become effective writers or thinkers. The only way to improve upon one's skills is practice and this is what they are missing. I have yet to become an extremely accomplished cellist by playing recordings of Yo-Yo Ma and telling people that I am really playing. In the same respect, the writing and brain capacities of these high school students are being stinted prematurely.
When said students are given future assignments, they have no way out other than to cheat again, or produce a sub-standard result. However, reliance on such ethics cannot hold out for long. Eventually, there will be an assignment that does not lead itself to cheating easily, say an in-class essay. It is here that they will fail as they attempt to develop their own conclusions and assertions.
As some students are able to grasp the finer workings of writing, others find it to be a menace as they continue to fall farther behind the curriculum. Certainly with the advent of the internet the boundary of academic integrity is being breached with greater frequency. Contrastingly, I highly doubt that many high school students use the internet to read up on effective ways of writing or ways of approaching large tests. Due to many of these factors, cheating has become somewhat of a common place in high schools today and does not look like it will be eradicated anytime in the near future.
Test Entry
Hello,
This is Bill and this is my test entry.
Bill