This is the graphic she uses to illustrate what was taught vs. what the student gave as an answer on the final. Makes me want to never ever screw up a final exam ever again. Yes, we all make mistakes, but being that student is too much to bear. Yeesh.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

I’ve always suspected that the morally screwed essay-writing-service industry was real, but couldn’t quite let myself believe that such moral larceny could occur in academia. I’m sure everyone else has always understood its existence to be true, but I’ve always worked hard to maintain the lie (to my obsessive, rule-following little self) that essay-writing services were evil myths, like Munchkins, that thing under my bed that won’t stop drooling, and that freaky tooth fairy bitch–stealing children’s teeth? Not unlike collecting the ears of your enemies.

It turns out you really can pay someone to do your writing for you in high school, college, and grad school. You just need a fistful of cash and a moral compass that’s lacking a true north. Outsourcing your brilliance is dumb. But apparently if you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed and your written communication looks like this:

“You did me business ethics propsal for me I need propsal got approved pls can you will write me paper?”

This:

“did u get the sorce I send
please where you are now?
Desprit to pass spring projict”

Or this:

“thanx so much for uhelp ican going to graduate to now”

Then maybe paying a professional is the way to go.

Oddly, I have a huge amount of respect for pseudonymity guy, Ed Dante, who wrote about his career writing strangers’ papers for money in The Chronicle of Higher Education. I somehow find only his clients to be reprehensible. He’s part of the machine, sure, but I’m going with the argument that if there weren’t a market for his services, he wouldn’t be writing other people’s essays. Please add to that the fact that Dante makes more money writing emergency thesis chapters for sub-par grad students than he could at almost any above-board writing gig.

Here’s what he says about the money:

I live well on the desperation, misery, and incompetence that your educational system has created. Granted, as a writer, I could earn more; certainly there are ways to earn less. But I never struggle to find work.

The endless admissions essays:

I have become a master of the admissions essay. I have written these for undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs, some at elite universities. I can explain exactly why you’re Brown material, why the Wharton M.B.A. program would benefit from your presence, how certain life experiences have prepared you for the rigors of your chosen course of study. I do not mean to be insensitive, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been paid to write about somebody helping a loved one battle cancer. I’ve written essays that could be adapted into Meryl Streep movies.

Seminary students:

I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow.

And retirement:

…there is little discussion about custom papers and how they differ from more-detectable forms of plagiarism, or about why students cheat in the first place. It is my hope that this essay will initiate such a conversation. As for me, I’m planning to retire. I’m tired of helping you make your students look competent.

You should read Dante’s whole confession. He’s damn smart, and makes such beautiful points about higher education and the levels of academia that are shockingly (maybe only to me) rife with cheating. It’s an unpleasantly shite-ful situation, but Dante’s article made me feel all warm inside. I do love honesty, but I think perhaps it was seeing the dirty unmentionables behind the curtain that did it for me in the end.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(moral compass)

ABC News reported that the public high schools in Grand Rapids, Michigan, have decided to give out “H” grades in lieu of a failing “F” grade. The “H” stands for “held,” and means the student has twelve weeks to do the work and fix the problem.

Yale University professor of psychology and child psychiatry, Alan Kazdin, makes an excellent point in his interview:

[Kazdin] believes that schools that veer away from giving children the grades they have earned — even when it’s a zero or an “F” — aren’t doing anyone any good.

“Children aren’t going to gain from ambiguous information regarding their grades,” said Kazdin.

“The fact is children are failing yet we don’t want to call it that,” said Kazdin. “It’s this whole notion that everyone’s a winner and everyone gets a trophy.”

Kazdin argues that children are perceptive enough that they will eventually realize they aren’t doing well in school whether teachers give them “F”s or not, and that hiding their true level of achievement will only confuse them further.

“The task is to change the reality, not the labeling of it,” he said.

Providing detailed feedback on what children can do to improve their grades is imperative, said Kazdin. While students may feel initially feel demoralized when they receive a failing grade, Kazdin said that by providing them with specific ways to improve their class standing they will eventually benefit from the traditional grading system.

Getting an “F” sends a pretty clear message to a kid that they are not getting it done, for whatever reason (learning issues, home issues, crappy school issues, etc.). Kids don’t need a bigger and brighter neon sign pointing out their academic inadequacies; they need a teacher or two to sit down with them and figure out what isn’t getting done, why it isn’t getting done, and how the kid can begin to dismantle the seemingly insurmountable mound of emotional and educational sh*t that has piled up in said kid’s life.

Someone help them fix it for god’s sake. And if they’re trying to flunk out on purpose, well, that’s too damn bad. They’re going to have to find a different school district ’cause there will apparently be no flunking out of the Grand Rapids school district.

Via Joanne Jacobs

Posted by Alexa Harrington