Yes, elementary students understand ethical concepts readily when
immediate wrong has been done to themselves, but the part of the brain that
usually isn't mature until about age 25 is the part that understands and
analyzes complex consequences. This tallies with my experience of
undergraduates; not only do they often fail to understand what to us is the
obvious fact that missing classes leads to lower grades (jeez), but they
often have a poor appreciation of the long-term or otherwise complicated
consequences of cheating. I believe we have the responsibility to help
educate them into a wider understanding of the ways that academic cheating
transforms both their futures and the very structures of our
society. It's not always easy to do this without sounding either pompous
or flippant, but one can find ways.
Nor--to refer to an earlier moment in this thread--do I believe
the answer lies in emphasizing exams over writing at the undergraduate
level. If not now, when? There's no magical time in a student's life
when she or he is ready to learn quickly how to write original
essays. Older students have more complex personal experience, certainly,
but waiting until graduate school to begin the slow, uneven process of
finding an original voice doesn't markedly speed up that process and can
waste valuable graduate degree time. It can also leave graduate students
feeling betrayed and embarrassed at having been sent thus far before being
given a good idea of whether this profession is truly for them. If we
de-emphasize original writing at the undergraduate level and then send
those undergraduates off to other institutions to learn how to write, we're
simply passing the buck.
Dorothy Stephens
At 09:11 AM 6/10/2005, Charles Butler wrote:
>The idea that a 22-year-old university student can't get their head round
>them is ingenious, but not totally convincing!
>
>Charlie
>
>
>
>
>Whatever you <http://www.wanadoo.co.uk/time/>Wanadoo
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