School Information System: The Harvard Cheating Scandal Is Stupid

September 2, 2012

The Harvard Cheating Scandal Is Stupid

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Harvard University is investigating what it calls an "unprecedented" case of cheating. College officials say around 125 students may have shared answers and plagiarized on a [Introduction To Congress] final exam.
What a scandal that such a thing would happen at Harvard! "Academic integrity issues are a bedrock of the educational mission." And etc.

Before everyone rushes to their predetermined sides, can we ask why, when there are cheating scandals, they are almost always in introductory classes? When the stakes are lowest?

75% of the students in these kind of courses get As and Bs because of Grade Inflation. I'd put big money down that if I used a crayon to draw an elephant and a donkey I'd get at least a B+ with the margin comment, "Interesting take, could you elaborate?"

And yet the students here felt compelled to cheat. Take a minute away from your self-righteousness and put yourself in their shoes. Did they not think they could get an A on their own? Or.... is "cheating" the only way to create the kind of answer that the professor wants?

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 2, 2012 4:53 AM
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Comments

* "Using in-text citations to support your answer" is the standard way academics pretend at knowledge, and it is always a trick, it doesn't allow the reader "a better understanding of your thought process," it is an appeal to authority (Salmon 2006) masquerading as critical thinking (Ennis 1987). *

The above quote from this piece is enough to label this piece as pure claptrap.

Only a know-it-all who has mastered nothing more than generating specious arguments would have the temerity to make this argument (and to cite "authorities" to do so).

What is or should be indisputable is that only opinions which cite evidence and the authorities who have mastered the topics in question have any possibility of validity.

*If I gave this test to other government professors not affiliated with the course, I'm sure they'd have good answers-- but would it be "what the professor is looking for?" That's the phrase that alerts you to the fact that the class isn't designed for you to learn but for him to teach.*

Of course, you're supposed to give back what the professor is looking for, otherwise why are you in school? The prof has mastered his/her area and is an expert and thinks like an expert and has the depth of knowledge about the area which students do not have, and if the student wants to master this same material, it will take at least a decade of increasingly challenging effort to accomplish. If the prof and the course and the work is well presented, then the student will learn what the prof is teaching.

Certainly at the beginning level of courses and likely throughout all undergraduate days, the job of the student is quite easily stated. If you disagree with the professor, your job is to determine why and how you are wrong and correct your misunderstandings and figure out why the professor is right!

Maybe if the student really is another Albert Einstein, then I might give him/her a pass on this, but the likelihood is exceedingly remote that that is the case.

*If I gave this test to other government professors not affiliated with the course, I'm sure they'd have good answers*

Of course, they would. And at other than advanced graduate level courses, all the answers would be similar and it would be obvious to those who've mastered the material. But I'm also certain the other profs answers would not be "good" but "excellent", for they would answer the questions based upon a breadth of knowledge and conceptualizations that no undergrad could possibly have.

Posted by: Larry Winkler at September 2, 2012 9:16 AM