As Jen notes, what does that have to do with what I learned?
I've learned that if I cheat, my GPA won't go down when I have a hard class.
Pegging self worth to grades is one of the worst things smart people do to themselves. I think it's really destructive.
I feel like that was directed at me. I could be wrong and just oversensitive, but this is an issue I'm working on. And, for the record, I've lowered my standards to shooting for a C in this class. I will be thrilled just to pass it. And I think I will...'cause if I didn't think I would I would be dropping it and taking it again next year.
And I am a bit of a grade whore, as I was discussing with MG on IM this morning. I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling good when one gets a good grade - one they've worked hard for.
Pegging self worth to grades is one of the worst things smart people do to themselves. I think it's really destructive.
I agree with that, as a stand-alone statement. But I don't think it ties in to cheating. Reporting cheaters has nothing to do with grades and/or what a student learns; it has to do with what's right.
(That said, I would have been too chicken to have reported anyone in college. My wee screed of What's Right comes from the wise old age of 34.)
ION, I'm editing an article about methadone, and the author keeps using the phrase "heroine addiction." I want to ask which heroine -- Wonder Woman? Sojourner Truth?
That's different than telling on a co-worker who arrives work to late every day, just because you resent the fact that they haven't been caught and you make every effort to get in on time.
Cheating, esp. in a grade-on-curve class, is more severe than coming late to work.
Gotta go with Hec, here.
Code of the streets. Nobody likes a rat. I think I would go home and visualize them tumors.
"Leave them to heaven..." Billy Shakespeare
There are a huge hump of things wrong with grades anyway, and don't get me started on grading on a curve. But this isn't even necessarily about self-worth -- other things can depend on your grades, like admission to other classes or graduate programs, or sometimes scholarships.
Then again, when I was at BU I did feel a stronger loyalty to my peers than to my teachers, because I didn't feel like the teachers were making the effort to actually teach, and the students were very much on our own. I felt that the teachers had pretty much broken the compact that says, "the students work on learning, and the teacher helps them."
Eh. I've got too much work to engage much. I do see both sides, but from the teaching point of view... arrgh! How can I teach you if you won't bother working on learning?
But as long as I'm not forced to choose sides, I'm fine with watching them dig their own graves.
Your argument is more positive than mine, and I agree with your fundamental points entirely. The point of going to school is to learn and master the material. Focusing on the competitive aspect misplaces the real point of an education. If they cheat, they don't learn.
There are certainly instances, as Calli notes, where the hierarchy is more worthy of loyalty than peers. Certainly my college was more deserving of me affection and loyalty than the frat boys who had large files of term papers which had been plagiarized for years. And yet, I never would've turned them in.
Informing on somebody just sits wrong with me. The offense would have to be genuinely harmful to a person or institution rather than just an offense against the abstract principles of Justice and Fair Play.
How is "cheating is wrong" abstract?
