What's happening to high school?
Okay, friends o' the blogosphere, I need a little input. Turns out I'm getting a whole bunch of hits on my Picture of Dorian Grey post. Turns out a whole bunch of them are coming from domains with names like www.prepschooloruniversity.edu. Turns out I got an angry email from a teacher letting me know in no uncertain terms that his students are copying pieces of my post and turning it in as their own work. "You are the kind of person that makes cheating easy," he says. "Someone who cares about literature as much as you seem to should make an effort to chastise cheaters, not help them."I take your point, Mr. Jackson. But I enjoy literature myself, and as much as I want to live in a world where high school students think about the things that they read, I also want to live in a world where non-students think and talk about what they read. Moreover, I think through ideas by developing them as I write; I'm not one of those people who outlines an essay before writing it. (If I could do THAT, then why would I need to write the darned thing? For me, being forced to put my ideas down on paper (or computer screens, as the case may be) helps me to clarify my thoughts and, indeed, leads me to new thoughts. Once I've figured out what it is that I have to say about something (by writing out my thoughts on the topic), I can go back and add the stupid introductory bit that essentially says, "What I will show in this paper is X." I don't know what X is until I've written it. That's why having a blog suits me so well: it allows me to think through interesting bits of my life.)
I might also point out that my one or two eminently stealable posts aren't even drops in the bucket when it comes to the lucrative and enormous industry of internet plagiarizing.
Still, I do feel bad, and I do suspect that not all teachers are nearly as proactive, or as computer-literate, as the annoyed Mr. Jackson. So here's the dilemma, blogophiles. Do I take down my posts on books? Do I refrain from writing them in the first place? Do I keep them up just because I happen to like posting them? Does it really matter anyhow? And if you're here looking for one of those posts in the first place, it might even be interesting to consider why that's okay, and under what academic circumstances stealing my ideas could be justified. Is there anything to the whatever-it-takes-to-get-ahead mentality that could make me feel better about aiding and abetting those who stand by it?
I'd love it if visitors to this blog would take a second to offer their thoughts on this post in particular.
posted by Skay @ 1:28 AM
5 Comments:
Q: "Do I take down my posts on books?"
A: I don't think you should...if we didn't have ANY information/thoughts on books available online we'd ALL suffer.
Q: Do I refrain from writing them in the first place?
A: Absolutely not! That's censorship, isn't it!?!
Q: Do I keep them up just because I happen to like posting them?
A: But of course! They are for your enjoyment, aren't they? It's not your fault others choose to misuse them.
Q: Does it really matter anyhow?
A: Which? That people are absconding with your words? That matters.
That students are cheating? Of course that matters.
I really don't think you should feel bad for YOUR ideas being stolen.
That teacher may be correctly concerned, but he should be addressing the problem with his students, I think...not holding you accountable.
OUTLAW SCHOLARLY REVIEWS
Ban information: it only leads to ill futures.
Kids are always going to cheat. Let your conscience be clear, or at least less gray, because the actuality of your intent is much cleaner than, say, any of these links.
I just love people like this… Mr. Jackson’s ‘solution’ to the problem does nothing to address the problem, but denies everyone the pleasure of an intellectual observance from one of the few thought-provoking bloggers I’ve found.
Let’s give Mr. Jackson, his due… he cares his students are cheating, which is certainly better than a teacher who doesn’t care if his students are cheating. But why is this your problem? You did not invite his, or any other students out there, to copy your post. And if it wasn’t you, it would be someone else’s post, or Cliff Notes, or Wikipedia summaries, etc, etc. Nor did you post your review of The Picture of Dorian Grey so they could cheat.
No, you do not take your book posts down. Nor do you refrain from writing them. The worst crime isn’t censorship, but self-censorship. Again, you are not responsible for other’s laziness and lack of original, critical thought. Yes, you keep writing them when and as the mood takes you. And, yes, you keep your posts up. They are your posts, your writing, your thoughts. You have every right to post your thoughts on your blog. What the hell happened to freedom of expression in America?
If there is fault here—and there is—it is not with you, but with the students who lack the ability or motivation to analyze a book, who just want to slide through with a minimum of effort, and so look for an easy out. It is also the fault of the education system for not teaching the students original thought or at least teaching them enough honour and self-respect not to cheat.
When the pot boils over, the cook can’t blame the stove, or write to Maytag, telling them they have to stop making appliances because of the cook’s inadequacies. Nor is it your fault for being smarter and more eloquent than 85 per cent of the world’s population. To do as Mr. Jackson suggests, and stop posting your book reviews, is to close off an avenue of intellectual discussion. Follow Mr. Jackson’s advice far enough, and we’ll all be WWE-watching, Jerry Springer-cheering, ‘reality’ show-loving, ball-scratching louts with the average IQ of a celery stalk.
Vive Skay! Vive la New York Diary!
An artist (or blogger, for that matter) cannot and should not be held responsible for the possibility that people will misuse his work.
To hell with Mr. Jackson. It's his problem that he can't motivate his students to think for themselves.
Wow. Opinion here is more one-sided than I had expected. I mean, it seems at least plausible that individuals have a responsibility here. We can think of plagiarism in the schools as a collective-action problem, much like pollution: it is arguable that my throwing cigarette butts out of the window is negligable in the grand scheme of things. Why shouldn't I do so, then? But we still say pollution is bad, because, fundamentally, collective action has to be addressed at the level of the individual.
Of course, Benton and Crag (and others) have a good point. Unlike cigarette butts, information and intellectual observation are very real goods in this world. The problem here is the theft, not anything to do with the thing being stolen.
All of which convinces me that y'all are all right: this problem is not my own (at least, not in my capacity as a blogger). I'll keep posting as I please.
That said, I can't help but point out that bloggers (like those commenting here) are rather more likely than the general public to be biased towards the opinion that blogs are harmless at worst, and beneficial at best.
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