In response to both these articles I would like to point out that from the beginning, each author makes and absolutely ludicrous presumption; cheating is a bad thing. Take for example the following situation, I am taking an anthropology exam and the person sitting next to me looks at my paper for question six. Sure, the guy will never learn the concept that question six was meant to test, but he has in fact done something more important, practiced a skill necessary to succeed. College isn’t about the facts we learn, if this was true savants would be in control of the world. College is about the skills we develop. One of the most important of these skills is the ability to use all available resources. In the real world, no one asks you to rattle off the names of the four most famous ethnographic studies, but when you’re asked the answer to something you don’t know, then it’s the person who cheated that is most likely to possess skills to find it. Cheating is looked down upon as immoral and shameful. However, if we removed the veil of dishonor that comes along with cheating and instead worked in a truly collaborative environment, society would benefit. Instead of everyone having to learn everything, people would be able to specialize in what truly interested them, and know where to find everything else. This is how a good marriage works. The husband may know the famous family pie recipe, and the wife may know where the cheapest place for ingredients is. In this case “cheating” is mutually beneficial. Cheating is only bad in an academic environment because we vilify it.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Ben Rader's Response
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Although I'm always first to play the Devil's Advocate, I have to disagree with your blog posting. While unauthorized collaboration might conceivably develop some skills that would be useful in day-to-day life, direct cheating almost certainly does not. The strength of the American educational system has always been that it values creative achievement over technical competence, and the act of cheating sacrifices the first for an appearance of the second. This kind of "achievement" is vilified for good reason - it is self-defeating at best and intellectually crippling at worst.
ReplyDeleteBen, your response to the articles was very interesting to read. It made me evaluate my own ideas about the nature of cheating. However, though I do agree that collaboration is valuable and that creativity is something to be rewarded in society, we must also keep in mind the integrity that is at stake here. Taking a test that requires the recollection of facts and figures is not only about basic memorization; it is also about the individual's determination to understand the basics of that subject as well as demonstrate a work ethic that can be applied positively to other things in life. We must also keep in mind that college is not simply about preparation for prospective careers but also about broadening our minds in terms of how we function in a social setting, the variety of subjects that we can challenge ourselves with, and the growth of the individual as a valuable member of society.
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