Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!ernie.Berkeley.EDU!lagache
From: lagache@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Edouard  Lagache)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: A pesimistic sociological view of cheating (Re: cheating detectors)
Keywords: Sociology, Anthropology of schooling.
Message-ID: <25189@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 23 Jul 88 16:37:04 GMT
References: <4513@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: lagache@violet.Berkeley.EDU (Edouard  Lagache)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 65

In article <4513@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> narten@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas Narten) writes:
		<Much deleted>
>
>Cheating is a matter of ethics; it is a "big deal".
>

		<More deleted>

>Moral of the story: it's relatively easy to catch cheaters; the hard
>part is figuring out what to do with them once they're in your office.
>-- 
>Thomas Narten
>narten@cs.purdue.edu or {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!purdue!narten

	  Perhaps the reason why it is hard to figure out what to do
	with the students is because the ethical standards that
	you wish to uphold are in fact no longer supported by the 
	society at large.  While I very much wish to support your stand,
	I see little point in trying to turn students around after years
	of being allowed to do "what it takes" to succeed.

	   Jean Lave's work on the social interactions in the classroom
	suggest an interesting mold to cast this problem in.  She spent 
	some months studying a grade school math class, and concentrated
	on one "work table" of students.  She saw that while students
	and teachers alike would both swear that they were learning from
	the teacher (when interviewed by the researchers), the fact of the
	matter was that the students were learning from each other far more
	than from the teacher.

	  Our society has all sorts of "Okay" hypocrisies.  For example,
	when asked in casual conversation "how are you doing", the 
	appropriate reply is "Okay", or "Alright" etc.  (even if you
	just lost the love of your life the day before).  If students
	are asked why they are in school, they will reply "to learn
	about the world", "to become well rounded" etc.  Why are they
	really there?  To succeed, period.  Even in kindergarten the 
	drive to meet the expectations of parents, teachers, and peers
	dictates behavior.  While cheaters will never admit to cheating, there
	isn't any real ethical basis in our society to keep them from
	cheating.  You do whatever you can get away with.  After all,
	isn't that how most corporations, government agencies, and
	even universities are run?

	  A pesimisitic view of life?  Perhaps.  However, the life of
	young people is extremely pesimistic these days.  They are
	almost guaranteed a lower standard of living than their parents,
	a personal life filled with the uncertainties of illdefined role
	types and grim prospects for long term happyness, and a world
	that is both hostile and unforgiving.  With all that to look 
	forward to, wouldn't you cheat to survive?

	  Under the circumstances, I wouldn't feel very good about
	throwing out one of my students unless I had made it very
	clear to the class from day-1 that cheating would not be tolerated
	and that clearly specified penalties will be doled out to cheaters.
	Unless students fully understand that the social norms in your class 
	are different than society's at large, then is some sense you have
	no right to prosecute.  

		Terrible?  You bet.  Go ahead and add it to the list of 
	30 billion other problems that must be solved.

						Edouard Lagache
						lagache@violet.berkeley.edu