Many of my friends teach. My employer teaches. Their disciplines cover a range of subjects, but they all have one thing in common: their students cheat.
Students plagiarize freely, they text message answers, they get term papers from Internet sites. It is an advancing trend, my friends say, and getting worse. Of course, they and their institutions try to fight it, but those efforts aren't effective.
What we need, one of them says, is to "teach ethical behavior rather than police students," and I agree. Students should realize that their subjects, especially core subjects, are interrelated and support each other. They called it a liberal arts education in my day, and those classes in religion and philosophy and statistics taught us ethics and moral responsibility. But students say they don't need courses in Japanese history or Russian literature or art because they won't need it for their jobs. I say "hooey." (Sorry for my language, Mom.)
Students may not need a class for their job, but they need that influence. They no longer are being taught how to discern truth from error, how to know right from wrong, so they cheat. And soon the kid who cheated his way through college could be your financial advisor, or your doctor. Or your son-in-law.
John,
I agree. No one seems to care about the Liberal Arts anymore.
Broadening one's perspective, learning to think critically, and aquiring knowledge about our world in general have taken a back-seat to Job Training.
But of course, Training ain't Education -- and I say this as a former Corporate Trainer.
It's no wonder we have such a proponderance of narrow-minded people in positions of responsibility today. We have a lot of good technicians, but very few well-rounded people who are prepared to assume leadership roles in many aspects of our society.
Makes one shudder when thinking of the future reprecussions of this failing.
It's no wonder our international reputation is so low anymore. We really need to demand more of our students and our schools, but there doesn't seem to be much impetus for this right now.
In this youth-oriented society, sudents are making most of the decisions about their higher education, even when others (primarily parents) are paying the bills. Where are all the adults?
Posted by: J. Cunningham | August 20, 2006 10:59 PM | Permalink to Comment