Re: HIT: Plagiarism Consequences

[Jeff Kirkpatrick <jeffkirk@CONCENTRIC.NET>]

> ... The honor student who
> turned this in, said that the idea came to him during lunch.  He said he
> jotted down notes on a napkin and then went home and wrote it.  This
student
> knew what he was doing.  I would assume that teachers would use their own
> judgement when it comes to marginal or questionable cases.  However, the
> English department wanted something stronger in order to deal with these
> blatant cases.

Friends,
    Yes, we need to hold others to account.  But, after biting my lip and
trying to simply hit "delete" on this one, I was compelled to offer the
following, though I will admit it strikes me as more preachy than I would
intend:

    An honor student (and we're all on our honor, ultimately, eh?) who finds
reason (motivation) to lie and cheat, will not likely learn better by having
his/her action met with simple derisive, dismissive punishment.  The English
department wants something stronger?  Why not try confronting the fact that
an individual driven to lie and cheat (or electing to so act, if you prefer)
has a PROBLEM, which the true teachers among us--when we are at our
best--will know to work to help resolve, with true concern and kindness and
a teacher's gift?  How might a learner, so evidently in the wrong, respond,
were the situation used (perhaps counterintuitively) to elevate and uplift,
rather than to abandon and beat down (possibly the very conditions which
drove the individual to make such poor choices in the first place)?
    I know each and every one of us has chosen to cheat the learners from
time to time, by failing to care enough to HELP them past their poor and
perhaps desperate choices, by freely offering the gifts we hold inside.
    But you won't find me writing this anti-teaching fraud up as if
acceptable educational policy or philosophy, for I'd know exactly what I was
doing... .
    I'm sorry.  If my words come across as appearing to put others down,
this is no different that that which I mean to argue against.  Please read
this as offering help, then, and not harsh criticism.

Take care.

JEK

*****
    It is better to beckon than to bitch, bully, beg, bribe or berate,
Bubba.

    One does not raise others up while beating them down.

Jeffrey E. Kirkpatrick
Advocate for libraries, education reform and humanity, in Aurora, CO
e-mail address: jeffkirk@concentric.net

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