January 28, 2009 at 11:02 am
Jeff,
Send it in. I'll at least give you an opinion, which is probably to stick it out there.
January 28, 2009 at 11:06 am
Steve Jones - Editor (1/28/2009)
Jeff,Send it in. I'll at least give you an opinion, which is probably to stick it out there.
Ummm... ok... I wouldn't be surprised if you said you wouldn't. I'll "wrap it" on the "Contribute" page with a warning to you in the "Introduction" box. Either way, I'd definitely like to hear your opinion on it. Maybe even make a couple of suggestions on how to tone it done... I was pretty hot about the subject when I wrote it.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
January 28, 2009 at 11:09 am
David Reed (1/28/2009)
The way that publik skrewel (in the US anyway) teaches "suppository writing" leads many, many people astray. Proper paraphrasing, citation and fair use are NOT taught these days. It seems to be more important that kids "produce something" and they're shown how easy copy&paste from Wikipedia can be. I'm not surprised that it's becoming more and more rampant.
It is the generalities that makes things so difficult. This may be your perception, however, with three school age children, this is not what I am seeing with my children. They are being taught to identify their sources, and such. At the High School level, plagerism can easily result in failing a class, and a couple of the instructors there actually screen major papers for just that. It is easier for them there as homework assignments are turned in electronically. Yes, every student at my daughters (plural, senior and freshman) have school issued laptop computers (around 1600 students) that they use almost all the time at school and home.
January 28, 2009 at 11:12 am
Lynn Pettis (1/28/2009)
68% of both boys and girls surveyed admitted to cheating on tests in school.56% of the boys and 45% of the girls felt that cheating is required to succeed in the "real world".
This was a survey of 4,200 high school athletes by the Josephson Institute of Ethics. From my guide, it appears that this survey was done in 2004.
The Josephson Institute has a very good website. I encourage you to check out http://josephsoninstitute.org/[/url]. They break down the demographics by things like Varsity sports vs. No Varsity sports, Public, religious and non-religious independent schools, etc. Interestingly, not really big differences between subgroups.
They have a quiz for students and a quiz for parents!
p.s. Their latest stats are for 2008.
January 28, 2009 at 11:31 am
Heh... you want a real measure of how many people lie? Just conduct some interviews for "SQL Developer" and check the person's knowledge against what they claim on their resume! 😛
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
January 28, 2009 at 11:38 am
And why do we have this problem, comes down to LEADERSHIP. Example, look at our politicians, and it doesn't matter if they are Federal, State, or Local officials. And they are the ones who complain the loudest about the lack of ethics!
January 28, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Lynn Pettis (1/28/2009)
And why do we have this problem, comes down to LEADERSHIP. Example, look at our politicians, and it doesn't matter if they are Federal, State, or Local officials. And they are the ones who complain the loudest about the lack of ethics!
Shoot... look at the "pro" sports players... performance enhancing drugs and bazillion dollar salaries... for playing a game! Then, like you said, look at famous words like "I did NOT have sex with that woman!"
The resume`s really get to me, though. It's a huge was of my time, the recruiter's time, HR's time, etc, etc.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
January 28, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Lynn Pettis (1/28/2009)
And why do we have this problem, comes down to LEADERSHIP. Example, look at our politicians, and it doesn't matter if they are Federal, State, or Local officials. And they are the ones who complain the loudest about the lack of ethics!
"The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
January 28, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I have used with great success the services of turnitin.com ("http://www.turnitin.com/")to check for plagiarism in work submitted to me by students in university classes. It could be worthwhile for someone in an editorial role like yours to use the same service, if Turnitin has a subscription cost that matches the presumably small volume of searches you would do.
Best regards.
Trevor Morrison
New Zealand
January 28, 2009 at 10:24 pm
This is the problem we face regularly in my office. We have tools to check it but that is also not 100% fullproof. I know how painful is this job. Steve it's really hat's off to you. I also request all the users please please avoid plagiarism. Atleast do not turnish the image of this forum.
January 29, 2009 at 9:39 am
Lynn Pettis (1/28/2009)
David Reed (1/28/2009)
The way that publik skrewel (in the US anyway) teaches "suppository writing" leads many, many people astray. Proper paraphrasing, citation and fair use are NOT taught these days. It seems to be more important that kids "produce something" and they're shown how easy copy&paste from Wikipedia can be. I'm not surprised that it's becoming more and more rampant.It is the generalities that makes things so difficult. This may be your perception, however, with three school age children, this is not what I am seeing with my children. They are being taught to identify their sources, and such. At the High School level, plagerism can easily result in failing a class, and a couple of the instructors there actually screen major papers for just that. It is easier for them there as homework assignments are turned in electronically. Yes, every student at my daughters (plural, senior and freshman) have school issued laptop computers (around 1600 students) that they use almost all the time at school and home.
You'd think that. A lot of parents who never see the inside of a classroom except when they're invited by the teachers think that, too. (What happens on Parents' Day is not representative!)
😛
I have three school age children myself. My wife and I are former publik skrewel educators. After two years as a substitute teacher (middle and high school) while I was a grad student (two semesters in a teacher certification program), I bailed out of my plans to become a fulltime teacher. Odd thing: it turns out that most databases are much more well-behaved than classrooms of children, and building software is more rewarding than supervising other peoples' little inmates (to me).
My wife managed to endure ~10 years as an elementary teacher until we had children of our own. We both worked in the most highly rated school districts in our areas and nearly every school we worked in were rated "exemplary". Our experiences with the meat grinder of the publik system is a big part of why we homeschool our children.
January 29, 2009 at 9:57 am
David Reed (1/29/2009)
Lynn Pettis (1/28/2009)
David Reed (1/28/2009)
The way that publik skrewel (in the US anyway) teaches "suppository writing" leads many, many people astray. Proper paraphrasing, citation and fair use are NOT taught these days. It seems to be more important that kids "produce something" and they're shown how easy copy&paste from Wikipedia can be. I'm not surprised that it's becoming more and more rampant.It is the generalities that makes things so difficult. This may be your perception, however, with three school age children, this is not what I am seeing with my children. They are being taught to identify their sources, and such. At the High School level, plagerism can easily result in failing a class, and a couple of the instructors there actually screen major papers for just that. It is easier for them there as homework assignments are turned in electronically. Yes, every student at my daughters (plural, senior and freshman) have school issued laptop computers (around 1600 students) that they use almost all the time at school and home.
You'd think that. A lot of parents who never see the inside of a classroom except when they're invited by the teachers think that, too. (What happens on Parents' Day is not representative!)
😛
I have three school age children myself. My wife and I are former publik skrewel educators. After two years as a substitute teacher (middle and high school) while I was a grad student (two semesters in a teacher certification program), I bailed out of my plans to become a fulltime teacher. Odd thing: it turns out that most databases are much more well-behaved than classrooms of children, and building software is more rewarding than supervising other peoples' little inmates (to me).
My wife managed to endure ~10 years as an elementary teacher until we had children of our own. We both worked in the most highly rated school districts in our areas and nearly every school we worked in were rated "exemplary". Our experiences with the meat grinder of the publik system is a big part of why we homeschool our children.
Well, I guess my wife and I aren't most parents. We take an active role in our childrens eductation and take it very seriously. We help with homework on a regular basis, when they are having problems we have even made appointments with their teachers and sat down with them to discuss what we can do to help them achieve.
My middle one is a freshman in high school this year, currently ranked 18th in her class of 402, and I remember this incident clearly when she was in 5th grade. She came home with an F on a 30 point quiz on decimals. Now understand, a couple months earlier she was doing decimals extremely well having a 4.0 average in school. I went in to talk to her teacher the next day after school. I walked up to her, showed her the test and said that this was unacceptable. What additional work can you send home with her so she can improve her knowledge in this area. yes, I asked her for MORE homework for my daughter. To say the least, she was quite surprised by my request.
Here is what it comes down to, you get out of public education what you put into it. Don't put the blame on public education itself. Parents need, no MUST, get involved if they truly want more for their children. Unfortunately for most parents they look at school as just a place to send their kids so that they don't have to deal with them.
Don't get me wrong, I think there are things wrong with public education. The first is actually the unions. They are more interested in the number of members rather than the children. I have seen that in many of the articles I have read. If they truly cared about educating our children, they would strive to ensure that ONLY hightly qualified teachers were in the classroom. I have read about the teachers teaching English to elemantary students who couldn't write a coherent letter to the parents themselves. Please give me a break.
Also, not every teacher belongs in the classroom. We had a teacher that we would have done everything in our power to keep our children out of her class. This teacher became a vice principle at our school, and guess what, she was awesome. Unfortunately she and her husband moved, but if we could get her back to our daughters elementary school as a principle, in a heartbeat.
All I can say, parents need to get involved, bottom line.
January 29, 2009 at 7:59 pm
While I absolutely agree that parents should be deeply involved in their kids schooling, not all parents can take the time off from work like you did, Lynn... especially in today's environment where employers are looking for any excuse to further thin the herd. 😉
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
January 29, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Jeff,
True, not every parent has a family friendly employer like I do at the moment (I work for a public school district, in fact it is the same one I graduated from). And I understand about employers looking for reasons to "thin the herd" as I was a victim of such an event in my opinion. However, almost every teacher that my children have had since kindergarten have easily accessible by phone and/or email and more than willing to meet with us even in the evening hours if needed. If parents take some initiative, the good teachers are more than willing to respond and even "bend over backward" for the parents if needed to help their children. The good teachers care, and if the parents are there helping to support their kids and the teacher, it shows.
Bashing public education doesn't make it better, in fact I think doing that (if that is all you are doing) just makes you part of the problem. I'd rather try and be part of the solution if I can be. One way for me now is to support the district I work at, and help them build the solutions that empower the teachers and staff to help our students meet or exceed everyones expectations. But guess what, if the community, and more importantly the parents, do not get involved it won't happen.
To anyone who can home school their kids, more power to you. My wife and I know we could not do it. One, we'd kill our kids; and two, they are thriving in the education environment they are in right now. All three of my girls are very social, and home schooling just would not be for them.
January 29, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Then, you've got some pretty good teachers. In a lot of places, either the teachers aren't so good as to hand out their personal contact numbers, or they don't because they would need to fear for their life if they did.
Other than that, I pretty much agree with everything you said.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
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