Spike's Bitches 27: I'm Embarrassed for Our Kind.
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risque (and frisque), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
The enormous state university where I teach now has no honor code, although it does have a policy against cheating. This puts faculty and students in an adversarial position, each one trying to outsmart the other.
In my tenure at this university we've had a plaigarism case where the professor believed that that student borrowed heavily from one paper to write another paper, while the student countered by saying they had followed the protocols of citation. Basically, the question was whether the student's paper was wholly original or not. Eventually the decision handed down was very down the middle and wishy-washy and left it to the professor to decide what to do.
I didn't see how the student could continue in that class after that, what with the professor continually in this "gotcha" mode.
In jr. high & high school, copying homework was pretty routine. None of us were incapable of doing the work. More often, we were bright enough to know that we were being given busy-work, and so naturally we didn't see the point in doing it. Cheating on tests was much rarer, but certainly happened. I think the amount of cheating was inversely proportional to the amount of respect we had for the teacher. And the amount of respect they had for us. I don't think I cheated on anything in college, because I studying things I was interested in, with teachers I liked.
Maybe my schoolmates were unusually corrupt. I believe that a lot of people have cheated on schoolwork at some point in their lives, and that very few of those people cheat habitually. Sometimes people who cheat have more complicated reasons than just laziness. And since I don't know those circumstances, I wouldn't feel comfortable policing their behavior.
In college my dad was given a passing grade in a chem lab class that he should have failed. The person turning in the final grades was misinformed and my dad didn't correct him. If he had gotten the failing grade, he wouldn't have been able to major in chemistry. I can't take seriously the idea that, because he didn't do one semester's lab work, he didn't deserve his PhD or his career as a chemist.
In Chicago there's a traffic sign that says, "Obay all traffic signs."
It's like the signs that say "Buckle up -- it's the law!" Like that's a good reason by itself.
Like that's a good reason by itself.
Yes it is! What's wrong with you people? When did you become this bunch of lawless anarchists?
Actually, have they changed laws so you can get stopped for not wearing a belt? Because it's a lame-assed law if you can't get busted for it on its own.
Actually, have they changed laws so you can get stopped for not wearing a belt? Because it's a lame-assed law if you can't get busted for it on its own.
In Washington state, yes, you can be stopped if not wearing your seatbelt is your only visible violation.
In California they can pull you over for being beltless. Been there, done that, ended up with a warning.
I thought it was weird that, for a time or in some places, you wouldn't get smacked down for being beltless unless you'd aroused the cop's suspicion some other way.
Easy for me to say -- I'm always belted.
I can't take seriously the idea that, because he didn't do one semester's lab work, he didn't deserve his PhD or his career as a chemist.
No, sure. But if he'd failed that class, would that have ruined his chances of ever getting his PhD or being a chemist? I'm not saying cheaters (and I'm not including your father in this, but moving on) are The Bad and should be impaled on spikes as a warning to others, nor am I denying there are ever mitigating circumstances (I'm not a fan of zero-tolerance policies for most things). But it does go on, to the extent that some people who don't deserve their grades or degrees get them, and that I think is serious enough to at least pass on to the teacher the question of what should be done in a particular case. (And indeed, you should use your own judgment. But I think a blanket policy of never snitching is a bad idea.)
Agree with you on the respect for teacher, totally. Which is why I find the "Take the test butt naked with a gag and earplugs because we don't trust you not to cheat" policy such a stupid response.
A friend who teaches at a local college said that she had students copying answers from their neighbors, even though to prevent that the students were given two different, color-coded versions of the test, so the students were copying answers for different questions. At that point, it becomes more a test of "just how stupid are you."
Possibly not quite as stupid as this - my mom had a couple of (university-level) students who plagairized
off the handout.
Florida just passed a similiar seatbelt law. I know that before if you got your belt on before they stopped you the police generally wouldn't ticket you for not wearing a seatbelt but a coworker got pulled over for both speeding and not wearing a seatbelt and the fine was pretty steep.
I have cheated once or twice, including once in college (I looked something up in a book on a closed-book take-home final). I did not turn myself in, though maybe I should have, and thus got an A- instead of the B+ I deserved in the class. Of course, since the class was graded using a scale decided before the final I chose (it was curved, but only using data from before the final), I technically may not have even committed an honor code violation, as nobody in the Caltech community was really taken advantage of - not that that makes it morally right. I never did it again, however, so my self-guilt taught me my lesson.
Had I been caught and turned in, the most likely result would have been me confessing, and either having the questions I looked up counted off (which might have dropped me to a B, but probably still a B+, in the class) or having to take the final again. For a first offense like that, there would have been no punitive damages to speak of, and it certainly wouldn't have gone on any sort of record. My GPA would have been mostly unharmed, and I would never have cheated again.
The reasonableness of that is why I wouldn't feel guilt for turning in others, as Strega says above. We had a good system going, and people who are cheating for complicated reasons that I can't judge, well, that would get taken into account by the Board of Control. If I went to a school with a no-compromises one-cheat-and-you're-out policy, I would never dream of reporting anybody, ever. At that stage, you're living in a fascist regime and you fight against it. I did fight against many other policy decisions at Tech, but it was all behavioral - the honor code itself was never something i felt any qualms about fighting for.
