Despairing for the Species

[Tawodi Osdi]

I didn't mean to come off as a relativist.  I definitely believe in teaching kids to take personal responsibility.  I was trying to indicate the problem is understandable not that it was excusable.

To back Hamrick's statement about school's acting dishonesty, I worked primarily in learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, and special education, and I saw a lot kids that were misdiagnosed to get a troublesome kid out of the way or for the extra funds that schools get for having x number of kids in those programs.

If we really want academic integrity, we will have to start with the integrity of society as a whole.  The kids are just the visible part of the weed.  Society is the root.

[BentonGrey]

Back up, Benton.  You can only get so far on the "blame the victim" argument before you have to back up.  So, the kids are responsible for being bullied?  The kids are responsible for being beat by their parents?  The kids are responsible for being told by their teachers that they are losers and will never be worth anything in life?  Really?  No, REALLY?  

The problem IS a two way street, Benton.  The culture you speak up hasn't existed since maybe the early 80s and that is being generous.  It's definitely gotten worse in the past fifteen years either way.  I think in part because the kids' have seen "the system" for the failure it is and have given up on it the way it has given up on them.  

And don't feed me any of the predictable arguments.  You can't not fairly and honestly shoulder all the blame on the kids in any possible scenario and claim the system as completely innocent.  And that is not to say that you personally have done anything wrong, Benton.  The way the education system is currently set up, the norm is to treat problems like they don't exist.  The results?  Things like school shootings, children killing themselves because they are being bullied, kids being killed by the bullies, Columbine.  You get the gist.  

Whoa-ho-ho, back up yourself, Hammick!  You've misunderstood me!  I never said that the system didn't deserve any blame, nor did I say that the kids have all of the responsibility.  What I was pointing out was that there are no "lost causes," and that, ultimately, whether a kid succeeds or fails is up to them.  I had issues, just like everybody else, worse than some people's, better than other's, but I wanted to get an education, so I worked hard and got a great one.  Some of my closest friends are the children of drug addicts, were abused, or what have you.  They all have their own issues, but they all worked hard and broke out of the cycles those things create.  Obviously, their parents, the system, or whoever did wrong in doing all the various types of nastiness that has been done to them, and those are things that need to be addressed, but the individuals themselves illustrate just how much a person CAN "get over" or "deal with" and still be successful.  I'm not talking about blame as much as I'm talking about responsibility and hope.  I'm pointing out that, as bad as things are, if we don't hold the kids accountable for their own actions, then we're only making it worse, because they CAN do it.  The key, as it has always been, is getting them to realize that.  

Of course, the question could be asked, 'how are you defining success,' and it would be a valid one.  One of the looming issues in America's approach to education is that college=success, and even more than that, college is simply what you do after high school.  Everyone can do it, and everyone should do it.  Those things simply aren't true.  A lot of my best students are at Richland because they want to be paramedics, cops, firemen, or what have you, and they are going to be really great in their chosen fields, definitely successes, and without ever having attended a traditional four year college.  So, obviously, we need some flexibility when it comes to that kind of definition.

In the past, teachers have been instructed to ignore problems as have the staff.  Therefore, a lot of the kids don't really KNOW how to "deal with it" and "get over it".  In a lot of cases, getting over it may not be simple as saying the words.  Get over being bullied in first period but when it happens every period and at lunch that becomes something the kid is not inherently equipped to deal with.  The problem has gotten a bit better but the ramifications of at least a decade of an education system that turned a blind eye to it are still being felt.  

Heh, I know what it's like to get bullied.  I know what it's like to face the lonely years between 13 and 18 when you don't "fit in," so I don't need to hear about it.  Yeah, the system is broken, and I'm pretty sure I've said as much on these boards, and I think some of the other posters in this thread have intimated as much.  I completely agree that we are, as a society, failing our students almost completely.  I wouldn't blame the teachers quite as strongly, though, as they are often just trying to survive in a system that is crashing around them.  I certainly don't envy the teachers who are slogging in the trenches of grades 1-12.  They are constantly put in no-win scenarios, and unlike Kirk, they can't cheat.

You offhandedly make a point that is a big focus of my classes, though.  High school teaches kids NOT to think (for the most part, but there are always exceptions), and I'm stuck trying to pick up the pieces and jumpstart these kids into using critical thinking skills that have never really been challenged.  

But honestly, I'm reading through this thread and while the original point about the cheating is wholeheartedly agreed with, there seems to be a lot of "griping about the students" and "blame the students" 100% without any suggestion that there may be something pushing them to that point from your side.  I am not say "you as the individual teacher" but "you as a representative of the system".  And if it is something that was done individually, then was it something you did of your own volition or something that was a result of the way that you were told to do it.

Keep in mind the original purpose of this thread.  I was frustrated with two students and was blowing off steam, of course it is going to be a lot of teachers griping about students.  Teachers have to deal with a lot of this kind of stuff, so a certain amount of griping is justified.  Of course there are other factors, and my class is designed, in large part, to counteract the weaknesses of a standard high school education.  Many of us are aware of that, and I spend a lot of my time trying to make my students aware of it too, in more than a vaguely angry kind of way.

It's obvious to anyone in education just how broken the system is here in the US.  I believe the latest estimates put the number of students graduating high school who were functionally illiterate at 20%.  How horrifying is that?  How embarrassing as a nation?  Still, this is the system that exists, and until we can fix it, we do what we can with what we have.

I didn't mean to come off as a relativist.  I definitely believe in teaching kids to take personal responsibility.  I was trying to indicate the problem is understandable not that it was excusable.

To back Hamrick's statement about school's acting dishonesty, I worked primarily in learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, and special education, and I saw a lot kids that were misdiagnosed to get a troublesome kid out of the way or for the extra funds that schools get for having x number of kids in those programs.

If we really want academic integrity, we will have to start with the integrity of society as a whole.  The kids are just the visible part of the weed.  Society is the root.

No worries Tawodi, that post was meant to come off a bit more light-hearted than it did.

[stumpy]

I have plenty of issues with the actions of institutions, but those issues ultimately come down to individuals. Things like "society" and "the system" are linguistic conveniences, handy in that they allow us to refer to many people at once, but generally too ethereal to actually be accountable or to form a proper subject for improvement. It is individuals who can do things and who have to be responsible for the things they do. Obviously, people carry with them the effects from childhood, role models, etc., and that may account for some bad behavior, but we can't fix the past and it serves us poorly to give someone a pass for their present and future misbehavior because we can link it to some disadvantage they endured in the past. Individuals can learn better behavior, but we can't start by fixing society because it is actual individuals who have to change for there to be any improvement. Setting clear standards and holding to them will alter individual behavior and that, in turn, will benefit society as the behavior becomes more widespread.

Meanwhile, in the context of the present conversation, we aren't talking about extreme things like shootings or suicides. We are talking about students choosing to do something that they know is wrong and then complaining when they have to face punishment for it. For sure there are dishonest people who work in government, businesses, schools, etc. But, this isn't an issue of someone seeing people doing wrong and being confused about what right and wrong are. I don't think a reasonable argument can be made that these students thought that the right way to complete their write-an-essay assignments was to cut and paste an essay they found on the web and turn it in as their own writing. There may be some point in debating the proper punishment (failed assignment vs. failed course, etc.), but I don't see where taking the focus off of the individual offenders will lead to better behavior.

[Tawodi Osdi]

To qualify myself, when I say society I do mean what Stumpy said.  Society always starts at the individual level and works up.  When I use system, I mean a bureaucracy whether governmental or corporate which operates at the group level and works down.  When I point my finger at society, it is because I believe that real solutions come from the bottom up which is society's power.  Too further clarify, the individual empowers society and therefore, I try to implore individuals to do the right thing.  I have little to know trust for bureaucratic systems and don't look at them for solutions.

[daglob]

We're all venting a little bit.

I never finished college, due to several factors (some of them my own darn fault), and seeing someone abusing (or ignoring) the opportunity to get a better education makes me angry. I feel sorry for the teachers, because they have to put up with all sorts of garbage, I feel sorry for the students who suffer from the actions of others. I feel sorry for the administrators who have to try and be peacemakers between everybody. I feel sorry for the parents who often work long hours and miss out on both the joys and responsibilites of raising children. I even feel a little sorry for the "group fours", because one day they are likely to get hit with a hefty dose of realism, and they are not going to know how to handle it.

And I honestly can't offer any real solutions to remedy the situation.

Oh, and about bullies: the problems with schools ignoring that goes back at least to 1962.

[BlueBard]

Hamrick, who exactly should Benton hold responsible for cheating the class?

This isn't about fault, it's about responsibility.  I had a lousy childhood in a lot of ways, but that doesn't give me a pass on being a responsible adult.

The point is that people MUST be held accountable for their actions or the whole society falls apart... like it's in the process of doing.  Doesn't matter if they were "never taught better" or had lousy childhoods.  Somewhere, sometime, most people get the message that there are rules to be followed -- even if they never bother to find out what they are.

I would agree that there needs to be a measured response.  The best thing is to let the students know up front what the rules are and what the consequences are for breaking them.  If that hasn't been done, then you need to give them a second chance, explain the rules, and THEN enforce them.

[Mr. Hamrick]

Hamrick, who exactly should Benton hold responsible for cheating the class?

This isn't about fault, it's about responsibility.  I had a lousy childhood in a lot of ways, but that doesn't give me a pass on being a responsible adult.

The point is that people MUST be held accountable for their actions or the whole society falls apart... like it's in the process of doing.  Doesn't matter if they were "never taught better" or had lousy childhoods.  Somewhere, sometime, most people get the message that there are rules to be followed -- even if they never bother to find out what they are.

I would agree that there needs to be a measured response.  The best thing is to let the students know up front what the rules are and what the consequences are for breaking them.  If that hasn't been done, then you need to give them a second chance, explain the rules, and THEN enforce them. 

My response was more to later things brought up than to the initial issue of cheating.   No one is saying that it wasn't the student's decision to cheat.  However, the question of what made that decision to cheat seem like the right thing to do at the time merits looking at even if it is not with the student directly.  If you have a class full of 26 kids and only one of them cheats and does so repetitively then there is probably an outside fact influencing that action should be addressed.  That's only an example but it's a situation that I have seen happen.

As for the issue of responsibility, one can only be responsible for their own actions not the actions of another person.  Surely you understand that.  Well, I assume you do.

[BlueBard]

As for the issue of responsibility, one can only be responsible for their own actions not the actions of another person.  Surely you understand that.  Well, I assume you do.

Ultimately, yes.  I'd say there are other levels of responsibility too, but ultimately everyone has to deal with the consequences of their own actions.

As a father, I am responsible for my children.  And you can be sure that I would be held responsible for certain things they might hopefully never do.  Break a neighbor's window, for example.  I would have to pay for it.  If I fail to pass some of that responsibility over to my child, well, there are consequences for that, too.  And I'd be partly to blame for them.  My job as a father is to teach them how to be responsible.

Benton, I can certainly understand your indignation over this.  It may be too late to keep that indignation out of it, but try to think of this as an opportunity to teach something worthwhile.  It may not be in the course syllabus, but it's probably more valuable.

[thalaw2]

Yes.  New research in education teaches consequences rather than punishment.  Consequences should be in line with the violation.  For example a student who is caught cheating would have to go through some training about not cheating on tests instead of receiving a zero tolerance punishment.  Each violation should be seen as an opportunity to teach rather than punish. 

I give my students a zero, but I also give them the option of doing the assignment again plus giving me a written statement about what they did wrong.

[Mr. Hamrick]

As for the issue of responsibility, one can only be responsible for their own actions not the actions of another person.  Surely you understand that.  Well, I assume you do.

Ultimately, yes.  I'd say there are other levels of responsibility too, but ultimately everyone has to deal with the consequences of their own actions.

As a father, I am responsible for my children.  And you can be sure that I would be held responsible for certain things they might hopefully never do.  Break a neighbor's window, for example.  I would have to pay for it.  If I fail to pass some of that responsibility over to my child, well, there are consequences for that, too.  And I'd be partly to blame for them.  My job as a father is to teach them how to be responsible.

But as a father, would you hold your child responsible for something that they had not responsibility for.  For example, if the neighbor's kid shoved your kid down then would you asked your child what he did to to cause to the neighbor's kid to do that thus assuming your child is at fault.  If your child did not provoke the neighbor's kid then how exactly is he dealing with the consequence of his own action?  

This is the mindset of some people.  Even the victim is somehow at fault and thus are not the victim but rather suffering the consequence of their actions.  And in some cases, it does extent to child raising.

[BlueBard]

Hamrick,

Not sure why you are getting so defensive and agitated about this.

First off, unless you're really out to pick a fight may I ask that you dial it back a little?  This thread is not a personal attack against you.

Second, there is nothing in common with your scenario of blaming one child for something another one did and people caught cheating.  The first is the result of an unwarranted conclusion and the second is based on hard evidence.

As a father, I can say unwarranted conclusions are certainly one of those things that happens.  It's an occupational hazard.  As a parent of four boys, I usually only see the tail end of some argument or fight.  I can't read their minds to find out why they did what they did or who did what.  It can be very difficult to sort out exactly what happened and you just have to make the best decision you can on how to handle it.  Sometimes you make the wrong and unfair decision.  You hardly ever know whether you handled it the right way or not.  But you can't always just let it go.

[Mr. Hamrick]

Hamrick,

Not sure why you are getting so defensive and agitated about this.

First off, unless you're really out to pick a fight may I ask that you dial it back a little?  This thread is not a personal attack against you.

Second, there is nothing in common with your scenario of blaming one child for something another one did and people caught cheating.  The first is the result of an unwarranted conclusion and the second is based on hard evidence.

As a father, I can say unwarranted conclusions are certainly one of those things that happens.  It's an occupational hazard.  As a parent of four boys, I usually only see the tail end of some argument or fight.  I can't read their minds to find out why they did what they did or who did what.  It can be very difficult to sort out exactly what happened and you just have to make the best decision you can on how to handle it.  Sometimes you make the wrong and unfair decision.  You hardly ever know whether you handled it the right way or not.  But you can't always just let it go.

No one is taking this as a personal attack that I know of.  I've tried to be very careful with my words no matter how passionately I may feel about a topic.  So, maybe you are misreading my intentions just a bit.  I am merely raising questions based on the comments made by various people here, including yourself.  The nature of the questioning goes back to the exchange between Tawodi Osdi and Benton and not about the cheating itself.  So be aware of what I was originally commenting on, BB, which was not the original post.  Benton was talking about a community college where he teaches whereas Tawodi Osdi was referring to was either a middle or high school environment.

And while the conversation started about cheating, it has moved well beyond that due to some of the posts in the thread.  In particular, the comments in the posts that I was responding to, but more importantly as to the reasons why the problem exists and what other social problems does it highlight.  For example, some kids don't really see it as a big deal if they cheat or not.   They are usually more upset that they got caught than shamed by what they did to begin with.   Having said that, there are a lot parental child situation that take the "unwarranted conclusions" from an occupational hazard to a modus operdi.  And the kids in those families are more likely to be okay with cheating, again going back to a lack of any sort of shame or developed self-respect.  

[marhawkman]

I actually have some respect for students who download an essay and rewrite it to make it better(at least for themselves).  But not even bothering to modify it a bit is just stupid.  Stupid people deserve to fail.  It's part of what defines them as stupid people.

I have heard of situations where people felt the need to cheat because their deadline felt impossibly short.  But in many cases that was because they didn't start on time.  Such as the old standby of being told at the beginning of the semester that you had to turn in a paper.  Then you have a few students who don't bother even doing an outline until the last week.

[vamp]

Being a high school senior, I regret to inform you that things don't appear to be getting any better. Teachers catch students cheating, but instead of failing them they simply deduct 5 points. Its really bad in senior classes. Teachers don't care as much as the students due. And while I do not believe that all teachers don't care, the great majority of them are fed up with their students to the point they don't bother fighting against the downwards trend towards content with mediocrity. It's quite sad

(and I go to Kempner high school. You have heard about it in the news lately...)