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?
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.
vw, I think Buffistas in general tend to be the type of people who are (or were) a little too grade-happy. Or are always looking for the gold star for their achievements. God knows *I* am the classic gold-star girl.
Grade Whores Unite!
Ummmm, that being said. I have a problem with plaigarism. If I'm aware a classmate is passing someone else's work off as their own, I have no problem calling them on it. Many of our assignments are team projects and I don't want anything resembling plaigarized material in one of my papers.
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.
And do you see the principle of Loyalty to Peers as less abstract?
Because speaking just for myself, my peers have to earn my loyalty like anyone else. Just because we're all in class together doesn't mean I've got their backs.
wrod. this.
Of course being, well, poor and a little bit desperate at various times in my life has changed my feelings on a lot of stuff, I think.
And I am a bit of a grade whore
I don't think there is a cure for this one. At least none I've found yet.
Leaving aside the question of curves and the effect on students who are really doing the work, teachers who are actually trying to teach, and schools which are trying to maintain an academic reputation, I will argue that it hurts people in the long run, by allowing those students to get away with shit and not be called on it, profit by it, and eventually be elected President.
Er, hypothetically.
