Can students still write legible words with a pen? I didn't think penpersonship was taught in the schools anymore. Or do they just write block letters?
This is solvable, of course. There just is no will on the part of universities in the face of all too powerful students..
So to start:
No more online anything. All classes are to be attended 'old style' with full attendance counting as a percentage on the final grade. There will be pop up exams throughout the semester with no prior warning. Some of them will be verbal tests. To miss one will be a reduction in the final grade. These pop ups (four of them) will each be worth 15% of the final grade, the final exam being worth only 30%. Full attendance counts for 10%. If one class is missed without a valid (death in the family..) reason, the ten per cent will be forfeited.
No smart phones, smart watches or laptops in class. Nothing is allowed except for pen and paper and textbooks only. All final exams held in large rooms, monitors everywhere. No bathroom breaks unless escorted.
For term papers, since no one can be trusted anymore - all papers are to be written in long hand while being monitored, over a series of classes in libraries - all source material will be found in the books on the shelves. At the end of each class, they are handed in to the monitors. At the second class those papers are handed back to the students to continue. And on until the term paper is completed.
Inflation in our dollar is bad enough, its value purchases less - inflation in students' grades is worse still - since it is their future, and our country's, that will be compromised.
Perhaps this should apply only to younger students. Working adults regularly take online courses at both the undergrad and graduate level that would be inaccessible if an actual attendance requirement were part of the deal.
I just took a 6-day professional course that also provides a certification. It was in-person with a practical exam in class and the final was a computer based exam at a testing center. There were no restrictions on using technology during class/lecture but it was COMPLETELY NOT AN OPTION for the practical and final exams. We were provided a pencil and a basic calculator... period! These standards protect the integrity of the certification that was earned. College/University degrees are already less sought after by employers than in decades past. Basic knowledge, critical thinking, experience and problem solving ability are becoming more desirable than a degree in many cases. Many educational institutions are so focused on non-academic issues and equality of outcome that they are utterly failing their students (figuratively not literally of course).
That is one of many simple solutions. The instructors are intelligent, educated people who can certainly find a way to solve this... if they WANT to. The problem is that academia is letting the students dictate the terms. Student satisfaction, regardless of how absurd the demands, is what drives the decisions. Holding students accountable for truly learning and being able to utilize and apply this knowledge on test day sounds a lot like real life. Challenges in life do not change what needs to done and college/university always has been and always SHOULD BE challenging.
I wonder how much place "holding (people) accountable" has in what passes for "real life" today. It seems to me that "real-life" has become full of a great deal of shucking and jiving and pure "BS"-- especially where great fortunes and huge business interests are concerned.
My thought exactly. If these professors are serious about stemming the tide, they can go back to pen and paper. Of course they would have to grade the written sections by hand. But then the professor would have a better grasp of student work and abilities. It would be far easier to pinpoint cheaters.
I don't think that will ever happen in Australian universities. Our unis are captive of the Chinese dollar, and feel the pressure to pass those students.
Whatever these students need will be provided, especially ways to graduate without requiring fluent English.
You're probably right. I taught in a private school here in California. We had a number of Chinese students. They did not have the same standards for honesty we have. They saw nothing wrong with cheating on tests in the most creative ways (2 phones; one to check in, one to cheat with; writing on their arms under long sleeves; and more). Many worked hard, but many also expected, since their dads were powerful in China, to get away with quite a bit. We sent a number of them back.
It seems simple enough, doesn't it? On test days you have to be in person, without any electronic devices, taking written tests. Otherwise, these tests have become meaningless, and grades meaningless, so why have them? Worse than meaningless, because they incentivize dishonesty.
In my electrical engineering exams, any formulae you might need you had to generate from a blank sheet of paper. I (as did everyone else) learned to write out a quick collection of reference formulas at the beginning of the exam. This had to be turned in with the exam.
In fairness, math and engineering problems can be easily adapted to discourage cheating by simply changing the constant parameters. You had to show your work which is pretty hard to fake. This helped since an arithmetic error or wrongly distributed term early in your solution throws off every step thereafter. So the prof or TA has to go through the process you did to evaluate whether the process was understood, getting you partial credit at least.
But these exams are the devil to grade, I imagine, so why bother? Just give the kids multiple guess, use the same exam problems year after year and everyone is happy.
At the university where I work, exams are mostly online. The instructors use covid as an excuse, but there are plenty of empty classrooms in which exams could be proctored. It's terrible especially because students are now required to have a working laptop to take exams, not to mention a place to use proctorial software which requires a room with no windows. We often see students in tears because they have a pending exam and their laptop has crashed.
I have completed an AA at a local community college, a BS online from a state university, and am currently in my final semester of grad school online at a different state school all in the past 7ish years. My community college offered by far the most rigorous coursework, the highest expectations both in terms of quality and work ethic, and the most invested, caring, high quality professors. My AA course exams were proctored, on paper, and had strict controls to prevent cheating. I recall once asking my CC finance professor to delay my final exam due to my power being out for days and she suggested I go to the local library instead. I did and she jumped through hoops working with the librarian to arrange for me to test there under their supervision. My undergrad classes used lockdown proctored technology for exams - the proctor software had access to your laptop camera to watch you take the test and all notes had to be done electronically in the program. Cheating probably wasnтАЩt impossible, thereтАЩs always creative cheaters but it would have been difficult at best. Grad school? There are ZERO controls and many students boast about using Chegg, etc to cheat their way through. ItтАЩs embarrassing.
There are plenty of ways for professors to administer exams even remotely that remove many of the easy opportunities to cheat - slightly revise questions year to year, use lockdown proctor software, require they use a proctor location (most public libraries offer this in addition to schools and for-profit tutoring businesses), require the submission of the note page for any math-related subjects, require hand-written essay responses, etc. My local library checked ID, confiscated electronics/bags/books/notes except for what the exam allowed, handled all of the exam handling (printing and scanning to return or entering exam codes into the proctor software), and afterwards signed off that they complied with the exam requirements. ItтАЩs not rocket science.
Well, for many departments they have what are called "Learning Outcome Assesmemts" which are tied to acreditation, etc. Some departments can be more project based, others might be test/formula driven. Heck, the art department has a "final" which is well....your art piece. However , the assesment level really depends upon the professor and course. I think a large part of it is that if your entire grade depends upon just two exams, that's a pretty heavy weight....although I know departments that are very close to that. What I've found interesting is that most students prefer more assesmemts rather than less, as it "spreads the pain out" rather than just two shots for a A or a D.
Personally, for my undegrad class. I give a brief 5 question quiz on every reading/material which amounts to about 2 or 3 a week. Done in class, on Canvas, 6 min. to complete, scored electronically/immediately, as well as midterm and final.
My graduate courses, since they meet only once a week, the majority of work is done outside of class with a week to complete/turn in.
Good point. This could make a real difference. But donтАЩt forget that some students get an exceptionality document that says they must be allowed to use a laptop for tests and exams.
Soon we will be voting on Tech sites it wonтАЩt matter where we click, Big Tech will manipulate the vote to wherever it needs to. We could be sitting in Russia and clicking to vote for the President of the US, and have it counted as a legitimate vote. Frightening thought!
I suspected that Kamala Harris did not take her own bar exam, passed on the second try. Unfortunately, I discovered that sign-in sheet is among a few categories of documents specifically excluded from FOI requests. It is so hard to believe she could have passed it, given the caliber of her public comments, and given that she did not qualify academically to enter law school, but took advantage of a program aimed at disadvantaged students for diversity reasons. I'll grant that she is better at political maneuvering than I would be.
A return to voter ID and paper ballots is the only way to eliminate election fraud. This statement should be judged on its own merits and the fact that Donald Trump also said this is not, per se, relevant.
A nation that facilitates election fraud is unserious about governance and is doomed to failure.
I agree with your comment overall. I support voter ID and paper ballots, but unfortunately they alone won't eliminate election fraud. Plenty of opportunities to stuff ballot boxes absent electronic voting.
It's not as if elections were never stolen before EV took over.
Missy- I agree but when you can reduce the Tsunami of chicanery that no show voting or no show testing yields, you've done 9/10's of the battle against fraud.
It's one third of the solution. Start with an accurate list of people who are qualified to vote, then ensure all the people voting are on that list, finally make sure you have an accurate count of the votes.
How do you get a Voter ID card if you are not on a Voter Roll? Hand counting will be accurate. DonтАЩt make your idea of perfect the enemy of the good.
My fifth-grade daughterтАЩs classwork is all computerized, standardized, test-driven, cookie-cutter mush. If I have to read the term social-emotional learning in one more school-sent email, I might scream.
The studentтАЩs computers have internet restrictions, so I'm told, but that doesn't stop some students from using Youtube during class.
ThereтАЩs a huge difference between equal opportunity and equal outcomes. Unfortunately, most people who subscribe to DEI and SEL donтАЩt differentiate. If the outcomes are not the same for everyone, then the problem is the program, not the skill/work ethic of the participant.
The brain is a funny thing, but when I saw тАЬEquity!тАЭ, it brought me back to the first time I saw the poster was popular (maybe still is?) of the three kids of differing heights peering over the fence at a baseball game. тАЬEqualityтАЭ is labeled as all three kids standing on the same size box, with only the tallest kid able to see over the fence, while тАЬEquityтАЭ is the three kids standing on enough boxes that all three can see over the fence. Left unsaid on the poster was the fact that the three kids were grabbing boxes so that they could watch a baseball game for which they didnтАЩt buy tickets.
Which is how equity generally plays out in practice, as outlined in everything from Animal Farm to тАЬThe TreesтАЭ by Rush to тАЬHarrison BergeronтАЭ by Vonnegut etc etc. Yet somehow leftist collectivists never seem to learn that тАЬkeeping the trees equal by hatchet, axe and sawтАЭ doesnтАЩt help anyone, just brings everyone down to the lowest common denominator of shittiness.
It also leaves to the imagination where those kids got those boxes, as well as a supposition that the number of boxes is unlimited, and that the height of each kid was simply a twist of fate, i.e. that it was simply their immutable characteristics that put the shorter kids in this particular conundrum.
God, the more I think about it, the more evil that cartoon is.
I went to a university with a very proud tradition of an honor code that we would scrawl out by hand on everything we turned in. The sanction was expulsion from school after a trial before your peers. My impression is that that tradition has been watered down significantly for reasons of тАЬEquityтАЭ.
Graduated college in 2017, we used scantron and paper tests. The way to go. Some professors would use online format for some assignments, but most tests were scantron on paper. But of course this was community college not a Ivy.
If I was your teacher, I would mark you down for not beginning your first sentence with I, not making it clear what you mean by scranton and using a Ivy.
When I first became friends on Facebook with my outstanding high school English teacher from 50 years ago, I was extremely fearful of writing something incorrectly when I posted on her page. As tough as she was in high school, she said she didn't judge informal posting in the same way. I appreciated the reprieve!
I think you meant тАЬIf I *were* your teacher,тАЭ and @Leenerz wrote тАЬscantron,тАЭ not тАЬscranton,тАЭ but in the spirit of the times IтАЩll let it slide and give you an A+ anyway.
Hah! Clearly English was not my major :). Scantron is just a paper students fill out with their answers and gets graded by machine. It can be buggy at times so teachers usually end up having to manually look over it to make sure the answers are correct.
I mean no offense, but the standards today are so low itтАЩs not at all clear. It wouldnтАЩt surprise me if you were a professor at a Ivy. Clear and concise has been replaced by unclear, short and slangy. I assumed scranton was a slangy name for a writing system rather than the city which gave the nation a cognitively impaired POTUS and I have an open mind as to whether the company in question knows what a proper noun is, but I assume it is based in Scranton. Good writing would have required the full name with proper spelling.
Normally I would not dream of criticizing a commenter on grammar or spelling. To so criticize is a far worse offense than any error of grammar, reflecting poorly on the critic.
Yet I rise to Leenerz's good-humored defense. We all make errors. In this case, you are hoisted on your own petard, Mr. Gain.
The correct tense is "If I were your teacher, I would mark ..." It is not "If I was your teacher, I would mark ..."
One might also have used "If I was your teacher, I would have marked ..." or even "If I had been your teacher, I would have marked ..."
I hope you will also give yourself a red mark for mistakenly altering the commenter's correct spelling, "scantron," to your mistaken "scranton." (I do hope "scranton" was not a consequence of "cheating" by using a spell check option, although your subsequent comment suggests you are still unaware of your misreading.) The correct word is the proper noun "Scantron," a registered trademark. The name is sufficiently generic that one could get away with not capitalizing it.
I knew what a Scantron was without it having to be defined. It is reasonable to presume anyone discussing academic cheating knows or can readily infer what a Scantron is, without it having to be (LOL) spelled out for them.
Then there is your failure to enclose the cited "a Ivy" mistake in quotes.
Leenerz, don't let these petty pendants bully you. I would not apologize to them. Each has made unwitting errors in their own comments, and are professing a superiority they have not earned in their own commentary.
Good comment, but I think you meant "these petty pedants", not "these petty pendants", which might more accurately describe some cheap necklaces. Sorry to be so pedantic :).
I agree that "petty pendants" sounds more poetic. But does the author (Alice K) possess the necessary credentials? As I understand it, in many states obtaining a "poetic license" requires at least a BA degree in "Professional Poetics". Students have apparently been cheating on exams by using ChatGPT to write their poems for them, all in the hope that the license will enable them to better engage readers on blogs like this one.
Your comment provoked a reconsideration. There are so many accidents of life that open or close a path, a door. I hadn't considered that this noxious ChatGPT might be someone's entry into an interest in poetry and so awaken that interest that, he or she develops it to the point of a readiness to ditch the chatbot device and do real poetry the imaginative way, without crutches or other artificial aids.
I agree, and I think the principle can be expanded beyond poetry; content created by ChatGPT on a variety of subjects could serve to inspire interest in those subjects. In fact, content created by actual humans could also kindle further interest in the subject matter of that content. Just imagine the possibilities: someone reads an article, essay, or book, fiction or non-fiction, and is thus inspired to explore and learn more! Oh, wait: I think this has already been going on for thousands of years :).
Re: ..."Normally I would not dream of criticizing a commenter on grammar or spelling. To so criticize is a far worse offense than any error of grammar, reflecting poorly on the critic. "
Written, I gather, with tongue-in-cheek, yes? --and, so, good for you, if so.
"Typos" are to be forgiven.
But I can't--and so I shan't-- pass over without remark that, as the (newspeak) old saying goes,
Sadly IтАЩm a very rusty writer. My job requirements are for me to be concise and short and it is a bad habit of communication for me. But I do agree with the spirit of what youтАЩre communicating, standards are obviously not what they were, and I even remember being one of the few people in my high school English class to actually read the books assigned to us in class. I donтАЩt imagine the move to do more things online has helped that situation at all. Chuckled at the potus comment, clearly I would not want to get it confused with the city!
Doesn't matter how rusty you are. Writing is _always_ time-consuming and pains-taking work. The most accomplised writers have (or used to have) a waste-paper basket full of crumpled paper beside their desks.
Moreover, it takes _more_ time, not less, to be concise. Concision is what's left after the dross has been stripped away.
The trouble is much deeper than your job's circumstances. The fast-forward world "requires" your job's "requirements" to rush to finish.
Hospital signs are going to have to read,
"Our sick and dying patients are as well as our time-constraints allow us to keep them."
Or the old bumper-sticker,
"The parts falling from this car are of the finest British manufacture."
We share a language which is nothing short of marvelous. There are so many English words which are _just_ _right_ but, through germinal ignorance, many of them languish in lexical limbo.
We ..."climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate..."
"Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" is my treasure.
Post, if you would, some of your thoughts on and descriptions of other aspects of teaching and of your students' interests and abilities--no specifics of course, just generalities. I'm always interested to read of teachers' experiences in their classroom work and the life of students generally today as the teachers see that.
Readersaurus, what makes you think I'm a teacher? Heh-heh...
There are many factors that have contributed to the absurd mess that is American education--at all levels. Too many to go into here. But I will say this:
Higher education is a joke. It takes too much of the students time and money for too little of a return. At this point, it is little more than a combination of crazed leftist ideologues who see it as a vehicle of mass indoctrination and simpy careerist administrators and bureaucrats looking for a cushy job where you don't have to work too hard or fear being layed off. The status quo needs to be blown up (figuratively speaking) and started over from scratch.
And again, the students, by and large, understand that college is a joke and act accordingly.
If this is allowed to continue, if this type of corruption simply becomes a part of everyday society, you're looking at the slow death of America and the West. Similar to what we see in countries like Russia, where little corruptions have permeated society to the point it's merely expected, as though it were some bizarre form of taxation, this can destroy a country and its people.
You're right. We've become a nation of rationalizers. Any criminal and/or immoral action is given a litany of excuses. The effect will be reflected in America's productivity. We don't manufacture anything here anymore (thank you Bill NAFTA Clinton) and yet, we are allowing millions of uneducated men and women to cross our borders illegally which is another form of cheating the system.
Death by a thousand corruptions. IтАЩm hopeful a backlash against these anti-merit moralists is underway, but I wonder how bad itтАЩll have to get before the people wake up to the decay thatтАЩs setting in. I think ppl like Jon Stewart have done a masterful job at stigmatizing conservatives as backward, heartless, and stupid, and thatтАЩs made so many millennials averse to ever voting Republican. But, itтАЩs clear the levers of power matter, and the only path at this juncture for the sane adults to grab said lever and restore sanity is through the Republican Party, flawed though it may be. IтАЩll never vote Democrat again until they shed their social revolutionary ideas and utopian fantasies.
Jon Stewart? I was a very small child when Dan Quayle was pilloried all over the news for misspelling potato. I only had a very vague idea that it was really because he dared to defend the rights of children to a natural married family. The damage was done, to my generation right there, though. Late night TV, Letterman, LenoтАжanti-conservative jokes were the norm. Anti-conservative news angles were the norm in local papers and news casts. The undermining of civilization has been happening for a very long time.
In fact, most people have probably never heard of Fulton Sheen and his prophecies of Communist doom for America now coming starkly true, nor, even more, of Pope Paul VIs epic and loathed 1960s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, basically viewmastering todayтАЩs moral decay like a time machine.
Whether that rubble was produced by engineers' moral faults or by the typical moral faults in corrupt politics is a matter difficult to untangle. It's not necessarily the engineers per se who supervised and allowed the shoddy construction (--not that you claimed it was!). Some _may_ have been complicit--for, in theory, someone has to sign off on the faithful adherence to proper materials and construction practices. But the person who ordered the engineers to shut up and do as they're told was not necessarily himself--in Turkey, very likely "himself"--an engineer.
IMHO this is 100% a parent and societal issue. You get to work with what society gives you. If we give you kids without a moral code, that's a pretty tall order to police.
The powers that be cannot pass the sniff test. Our corrupt government and political parties are teaching everyone thats its cool to be dishonest and everyone turns the other way. America is a mess.
Off topic: Left wing government sponsored antisemitism.
Anti-Semitism is being introduced to the school curricula of many schools nationwide.
In California, critical race theory has been rechristened тАЬethnic studiesтАЭ and has broadened its line of attack. In addition to white people, ethnic studies have added Jewish people and the Jewish homeland of Israel to the list of racist and oppressive entities. The anti-Israel and anti-Jewish curriculum includes strong support for Palestinians, including classroom decorations such as a Palestinian flag and a drive to honor тАЬPalestinian mothers with children in Israeli jails.тАЭ Additionally, Israel is described as a тАЬcolonial settler stateтАЭ founded тАЬthrough genocide.тАЭ
тАЬThe California programs are especially dangerous. Anti-Israel ideology and anti-Zionism are fully embraced. Palestinian activists work with teachers. Some of the materials include maps with no Israel.тАЭ Israel is also portrayed as an illegal occupier.
Just one more reason to despise the left wing nut cases. I believe these NAZIs permeate the Dem/Soc party and aren't just a small fringe group. On top of being disgusting, it is dangerous.
Remember, when you go to the polls in 2014, vote for the neo NAZI/Dem/Soc party.
I am saddened, but not shocked. The rise of anti-Semitism is apparent, as is the rise of anti-Americanism. That it is gaining steam in California is hardly a surprise or a shock. Thank you for the info and the reading material. Take care.
I understand what you're saying, Lonesome, as criticism of Israel is suffused with Anti Semitism.
However it must be said, and please counter me if necessary - Netanyahu at this moment is doing the supporters of Israel amongst us no favours as he craters to the ultra Orthodox parties girding his government coalition in his attempts to legislate Israel's judiciary's power away from them. The opposition to this in Israel itself is intense, and in the Jewish diaspora here at home.
Whether what he's doing is anti democratic or not is open for debate - but if sympathy for Israel was waning before, it is worse now.
It is not all anti-Zionist. It is also anti-Jewish. "The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium explicitly states on its website that тАЬCritical Race Theory is one of the many theoretical lenses used in Ethnic Studies.тАЭ LESMC has a history of pushing schools to adopt anti-Israel and anti-Jewish lessons and advocacy with its program."
I pretty sure but I could be wrong but NAZI Germany was anti-Jewish. Antisemitism worldwide is on the rise. We certainly don't need to be teaching it in our schools.
I'm stunned! Stunned, I'm telling you that a hard core hard left state like California would be a hub of government sponsored anti-Jewish classes. Aren't "liberals" supposed to be diverse and inclusive and never judge people by their race, color or creed? Anyway, that is what those left wing hypocrites tell everybody?
Thank you for sharing this - I am a parent volunteer for the "ethnic curriculum"for my school board, the language that the state provided is already heavily "contaminated"with marxists elements. We are in the process of selecting the curriculum - this thing should have been scraped all together,
The moral code that you and I might recognize, Bruce, has now been replaced by an influencer on TikTok or Instagram. Whatever code this latest generation is following, it's as pliable as hell.
It is often conditional based on whether or not a man is a progressive or a conservative. Another commenter referenced "Me Too!" and those crazies in the pink hats are more proof of your statement. Pliable....oh yeah. Some of those women are contortionists.
That's precisely the issue. I saw it quite a lot in my own career. On occasion I recall blurting out, "who the hell raised you, a pack of wolves?" I was lucky, I was 'the boss'. Nevertheless, it was shocking and made me sad to see. Take care.
Parents can provide a moral foundation but unless the child is placed in a cocoon, which creates other problems, after a point peer pressure rules for most.
I consider myself one of the luckiest people alive, because while my dad never rode my behind, he simply set the example by being the best, most honest man he could. I never cheated, because I knew that would disappoint him and shame him.
All about the role model, huh? Which makes me speculate that most of the cheaters fo not have those and most of the non-cheaters do. A consequence of the village rearing the children? Are they learning that any means justify the desired goal?
You are one of the luckiest people alive! God love you and your dad. I totally understand how you feel about meeting a standard just because...Dad. (Otherwise, who knows how I would have turned out? I was not the easiest daughter to raise..:-).)
Good for your dad. And for you. I was blessed with a great dad too. He said do the right thing. Not the easy thing. Not the popular thing. Not the fun thing. . . . The right thing.
Our children are in their 20s. This is how we have brought them up. My youngest is in her final year at uni. We've talked about cheating, and how she would really only be cheating herself. (also she has to write referenced papers, which ChatGPT can't do - yet)
Thankfully a life of setting standards through our own conduct has rubbed off. They are all good kids, that understand there are no REAL shortcuts in life.
Thank you for saying that. Those dads are a blessing to be sure. Daddy also used to say.."Don't expect me to give you a gold star for doing what you're supposed to do." And the big one.."I don't remember every telling you that doing the right thing was going to be easy.' Damn we were lucky! God bless them, and God bless you.
The kids who donтАЩt cheat are punished (so to speak) w a тАШvalidтАЩ grade. I wonтАЩt be trusting any young doctors or finance people going forward unless they graduated with a 3.0. Top of the class/with honors has lost all meaning.
If only you could do that. The LCME (the accrediting organization for medical schools) has made it so that ALL medical schools are now pass/fail and have exactly the same "work/life balance -- take the test at home" issues as are described here -- student satisfaction top of the list of "important" certification criteria. Even the National Boards are now pass/fail. Of course, the reason for all this is the lowering of admission standards for...equity. So, although always promised "we would NEVER lower graduation standards" that is the first thing they did. So you have no idea what their GPA was -- and you never will.
In Australia, the Specialist medical colleges are affected by the woke virus as well. The quality if training is way down, such as reducing the number of procedures completed per year.
The young specialists graduating are seriously under-done. Always see a specialist who is 45+ years old.
This is absolutely terrifying. Gender studies majors? The impact if they know nothing is very indirect - they vote for idiots, of course, they wreak havoc, but they arenтАЩt flying airplanes, doing brain surgery etc.
But some people are, actually, drilling into other peopleтАЩs skulls. Pass/fail and тАЬequityтАЭ medical degrees have real consequences there.
The LCME move toward "equity" has been going on for at least a decade. It just took a while for all of the dominoes (e.g., move to pass/fail, etc.) to fall. This was inevitable when the LCME forced the admission requirements to change. For many years, medical school admissions requirements were: 1) The mental ability to take on the more-than-difficult medical curriculum, measured primarily through rigorous evaluation of coursework, GPA and MCAT (the admissions test) scores; 2) The commitment to putting in the work (never a discussion of "work/life balance" in medical school -- to be a doctor, your work is your life, for all the good and bad that engenders); and 3) The deep desire to make every patient's life better and to cure/diagnose/help as many as it was possible to help. We had refined this selection process over decades and it resulted in many good doctors.
The LCME decided that this was all wrong and that admissions should not reflect the above -- because...equity. Now the three admissions criteria are: 1) demographic score; 2) Social Justice Warrior/Wokeness score; and 3) "distance travelled" score. And a few bonus points for following some doctor around. I wish I were exaggerating, but I am not.
So this insidious process has been going on for 10-15 years. The manifestations are just now beginning to show. Most of my colleagues will not see any physician under 45. It is not that there are not good ones...there are. You just have no way to ever figure out which are good and which are bad. And that is deliberate.
Thank you so much for your very informative response. I am a retired high school teacher and administrator, and I am so sad to read your response as well as the comments of others on this whole thread. I have many thoughts about it; suffice it to say, we are in tough times in our country. The young people who are now doctors and engineers (whom I had the pleasure to teach many years ago) will be the ones we will still be able to trust. I just had a conversation with a man last night wanting my opinion on which high school his son should attend....one of my many points to him was the value of the education - versus his interest in the grades his son would get that would allow him to attend "top colleges." I hope I dissuaded him from that as one of his many concerns....so tired of this approach vs. the value of learning. All the best to you, Dr. K.
Rather, I discount _all_ "young people's" intellect as the product of scammers, skaters and light-weights who've never turned a page of a book voluntarily, never had a serious thought from they didn't run screaming. Now, that's going to be unfair, unjustified, in a certain number of cases. But the point is that this off-the-cuff judgement is just that, a handy reference tool, not a substitute for actually getting to know a person's genuine qualities by doing that rare thing: spending extended time getting to know him.
ChatGPT shall never replace old fashioned courtship rituals. One cannot "mail-in" one's love and devotion as a bot-product's output.
Meanwhile, a lot of truly crappy stuff is going to be proposed, tried, and it's going to crash and burn--when "the rubber hits the road."
It's that reputation, deserved or not, which is going to mark and harm these generations. I now scoff at Ivy League graduates' credentials.
A Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford or Wharton, Oxford or Cambridge college diploma, huh?
If you can lie to everyone in the entire country and be rewarded with total power and never be held accountable, why would you ever be honest? This is the example penetrating all of our young skulls full of mush.
Look at our leadership. We have a President who plagiarized in college (https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html), adopted British politician Neil Kinnock's biography as his own in 1987, claims to have gone to a black church when in high school, says he was raised in a Puerto Rican community, and, through his press secretary, tells America that our southern border is secure. And that just scratches the surface. (Many people say Trump lied more, and it was Obama that lied about keeping your doctor to sell the Affordable Care Act.) Of course, we have Rep. George Santos (R-NY) who lied about virtually everything while campaigning for Congress. If there's no accountability at the top, maybe a lack of accountability for students is understandable. It's still terribly sad.
Afraid you're right. Parents are the first ones to scream at teachers for not giving their kids good grades; teachers get yelled at by admin for same, and the ball just keeps rolling downhill. Although I have to think that the number of parents that do that are small and it takes courage to fight the necessary battles to keep said ball from rolling downhill...but maybe I'm just retaining an unreasonable shred of optimism.
I was an adjunct at a private university for a few years (school of ed). My students were all senior undergrads in one section or graduate students for the other. The grad students put out quality work and effort.
The quality of work the undergrad seniors produced was astonishingly bad. I am not sure if it was indifference or ineptitude, but the end result is the same: 22-23 year old adults coming out of college with below average skills and/or a lack of motivation to produce quality work. Yet they have the false notion that they're qualified and therefore entitled to a job and premium compensation because they 'have a degree' and likely had pretty good grades the whole time, too. It's shameful.
As a business owner, we've seen it time and again. They think they're worth more than they are and have unreasonable demands. They usually don't last long.
There is still or someone wouldn't have written this article...but under attack like many, many things of value. But 1 person standing up can be seen...
The woke mob that controls the campus does not believe in merit, so why should they be concerned with cheating. Woke neo-Marxism is destroying the fabric of America.
Thats what I do. My midterm and my final are handwritten on paper.
Can students still write legible words with a pen? I didn't think penpersonship was taught in the schools anymore. Or do they just write block letters?
Generally they can, but a requirement for the work would be that the teacher can read it. Cursive or printing would be fine as long as it is legible.
Thank you.
Bless you.
This is solvable, of course. There just is no will on the part of universities in the face of all too powerful students..
So to start:
No more online anything. All classes are to be attended 'old style' with full attendance counting as a percentage on the final grade. There will be pop up exams throughout the semester with no prior warning. Some of them will be verbal tests. To miss one will be a reduction in the final grade. These pop ups (four of them) will each be worth 15% of the final grade, the final exam being worth only 30%. Full attendance counts for 10%. If one class is missed without a valid (death in the family..) reason, the ten per cent will be forfeited.
No smart phones, smart watches or laptops in class. Nothing is allowed except for pen and paper and textbooks only. All final exams held in large rooms, monitors everywhere. No bathroom breaks unless escorted.
For term papers, since no one can be trusted anymore - all papers are to be written in long hand while being monitored, over a series of classes in libraries - all source material will be found in the books on the shelves. At the end of each class, they are handed in to the monitors. At the second class those papers are handed back to the students to continue. And on until the term paper is completed.
Inflation in our dollar is bad enough, its value purchases less - inflation in students' grades is worse still - since it is their future, and our country's, that will be compromised.
Perhaps this should apply only to younger students. Working adults regularly take online courses at both the undergrad and graduate level that would be inaccessible if an actual attendance requirement were part of the deal.
You're right. A distinction I should have made.
I just took a 6-day professional course that also provides a certification. It was in-person with a practical exam in class and the final was a computer based exam at a testing center. There were no restrictions on using technology during class/lecture but it was COMPLETELY NOT AN OPTION for the practical and final exams. We were provided a pencil and a basic calculator... period! These standards protect the integrity of the certification that was earned. College/University degrees are already less sought after by employers than in decades past. Basic knowledge, critical thinking, experience and problem solving ability are becoming more desirable than a degree in many cases. Many educational institutions are so focused on non-academic issues and equality of outcome that they are utterly failing their students (figuratively not literally of course).
Agreed. It's interesting that basic knowledge, critical thinking and problem solving were once synonymous with a university degree. No more.
That is one of many simple solutions. The instructors are intelligent, educated people who can certainly find a way to solve this... if they WANT to. The problem is that academia is letting the students dictate the terms. Student satisfaction, regardless of how absurd the demands, is what drives the decisions. Holding students accountable for truly learning and being able to utilize and apply this knowledge on test day sounds a lot like real life. Challenges in life do not change what needs to done and college/university always has been and always SHOULD BE challenging.
Do you teach? If so, what area and level?
I do training and leadership at my company. Arizona and California. I do not have a college degree.
Oh, you sounded like you had experiece in Higher Ed/academia.
Correct. The solutions are there, if there is the will. Unfortunately there is not the will, because academia is operating under perverse incentives.
I wonder how much place "holding (people) accountable" has in what passes for "real life" today. It seems to me that "real-life" has become full of a great deal of shucking and jiving and pure "BS"-- especially where great fortunes and huge business interests are concerned.
My thought exactly. If these professors are serious about stemming the tide, they can go back to pen and paper. Of course they would have to grade the written sections by hand. But then the professor would have a better grasp of student work and abilities. It would be far easier to pinpoint cheaters.
I don't think that will ever happen in Australian universities. Our unis are captive of the Chinese dollar, and feel the pressure to pass those students.
Whatever these students need will be provided, especially ways to graduate without requiring fluent English.
You're probably right. I taught in a private school here in California. We had a number of Chinese students. They did not have the same standards for honesty we have. They saw nothing wrong with cheating on tests in the most creative ways (2 phones; one to check in, one to cheat with; writing on their arms under long sleeves; and more). Many worked hard, but many also expected, since their dads were powerful in China, to get away with quite a bit. We sent a number of them back.
It seems simple enough, doesn't it? On test days you have to be in person, without any electronic devices, taking written tests. Otherwise, these tests have become meaningless, and grades meaningless, so why have them? Worse than meaningless, because they incentivize dishonesty.
In my electrical engineering exams, any formulae you might need you had to generate from a blank sheet of paper. I (as did everyone else) learned to write out a quick collection of reference formulas at the beginning of the exam. This had to be turned in with the exam.
In fairness, math and engineering problems can be easily adapted to discourage cheating by simply changing the constant parameters. You had to show your work which is pretty hard to fake. This helped since an arithmetic error or wrongly distributed term early in your solution throws off every step thereafter. So the prof or TA has to go through the process you did to evaluate whether the process was understood, getting you partial credit at least.
But these exams are the devil to grade, I imagine, so why bother? Just give the kids multiple guess, use the same exam problems year after year and everyone is happy.
At the university where I work, exams are mostly online. The instructors use covid as an excuse, but there are plenty of empty classrooms in which exams could be proctored. It's terrible especially because students are now required to have a working laptop to take exams, not to mention a place to use proctorial software which requires a room with no windows. We often see students in tears because they have a pending exam and their laptop has crashed.
I have completed an AA at a local community college, a BS online from a state university, and am currently in my final semester of grad school online at a different state school all in the past 7ish years. My community college offered by far the most rigorous coursework, the highest expectations both in terms of quality and work ethic, and the most invested, caring, high quality professors. My AA course exams were proctored, on paper, and had strict controls to prevent cheating. I recall once asking my CC finance professor to delay my final exam due to my power being out for days and she suggested I go to the local library instead. I did and she jumped through hoops working with the librarian to arrange for me to test there under their supervision. My undergrad classes used lockdown proctored technology for exams - the proctor software had access to your laptop camera to watch you take the test and all notes had to be done electronically in the program. Cheating probably wasnтАЩt impossible, thereтАЩs always creative cheaters but it would have been difficult at best. Grad school? There are ZERO controls and many students boast about using Chegg, etc to cheat their way through. ItтАЩs embarrassing.
There are plenty of ways for professors to administer exams even remotely that remove many of the easy opportunities to cheat - slightly revise questions year to year, use lockdown proctor software, require they use a proctor location (most public libraries offer this in addition to schools and for-profit tutoring businesses), require the submission of the note page for any math-related subjects, require hand-written essay responses, etc. My local library checked ID, confiscated electronics/bags/books/notes except for what the exam allowed, handled all of the exam handling (printing and scanning to return or entering exam codes into the proctor software), and afterwards signed off that they complied with the exam requirements. ItтАЩs not rocket science.
None of ours are "online." In class. With faculty. Software, Lockdown Browser, etc.
Some of ours are like that too. Most are remote with proctorial software.
Apparently the teachers donтАЩt want to be bothered anyway. No one is doing the work.
Lol. "Doing the work" - grading 80 x 4 midterm exams, final exams and quizes, etc. by hand.
May I ask the learned Professor - why do you (academics) set so much assessment?
Why not just a mid-term and end or term?
Well, for many departments they have what are called "Learning Outcome Assesmemts" which are tied to acreditation, etc. Some departments can be more project based, others might be test/formula driven. Heck, the art department has a "final" which is well....your art piece. However , the assesment level really depends upon the professor and course. I think a large part of it is that if your entire grade depends upon just two exams, that's a pretty heavy weight....although I know departments that are very close to that. What I've found interesting is that most students prefer more assesmemts rather than less, as it "spreads the pain out" rather than just two shots for a A or a D.
Personally, for my undegrad class. I give a brief 5 question quiz on every reading/material which amounts to about 2 or 3 a week. Done in class, on Canvas, 6 min. to complete, scored electronically/immediately, as well as midterm and final.
My graduate courses, since they meet only once a week, the majority of work is done outside of class with a week to complete/turn in.
What would a Comprof? --what courses do you teach?
Organizational Com, Strategic Management (grad) Rhetoric and Social Media and Intro to Com (undergrad)
IтАЩm going on the info in this article.
That was your first mistake.
Good point. This could make a real difference. But donтАЩt forget that some students get an exceptionality document that says they must be allowed to use a laptop for tests and exams.
Kind of like voting used to be - in person, show an ID, paper ballot. Voila, almost impossible to cheat.
Soon we will be voting on Tech sites it wonтАЩt matter where we click, Big Tech will manipulate the vote to wherever it needs to. We could be sitting in Russia and clicking to vote for the President of the US, and have it counted as a legitimate vote. Frightening thought!
I suspected that Kamala Harris did not take her own bar exam, passed on the second try. Unfortunately, I discovered that sign-in sheet is among a few categories of documents specifically excluded from FOI requests. It is so hard to believe she could have passed it, given the caliber of her public comments, and given that she did not qualify academically to enter law school, but took advantage of a program aimed at disadvantaged students for diversity reasons. I'll grant that she is better at political maneuvering than I would be.
A return to voter ID and paper ballots is the only way to eliminate election fraud. This statement should be judged on its own merits and the fact that Donald Trump also said this is not, per se, relevant.
A nation that facilitates election fraud is unserious about governance and is doomed to failure.
I agree with your comment overall. I support voter ID and paper ballots, but unfortunately they alone won't eliminate election fraud. Plenty of opportunities to stuff ballot boxes absent electronic voting.
It's not as if elections were never stolen before EV took over.
Missy- I agree but when you can reduce the Tsunami of chicanery that no show voting or no show testing yields, you've done 9/10's of the battle against fraud.
It's one third of the solution. Start with an accurate list of people who are qualified to vote, then ensure all the people voting are on that list, finally make sure you have an accurate count of the votes.
How do you get a Voter ID card if you are not on a Voter Roll? Hand counting will be accurate. DonтАЩt make your idea of perfect the enemy of the good.
I only wish people cared enough about voting to figure out ways to cheat.
"You're not going to vote? I'll give you $5 for that ballot the state mailed you. Just sign the bottom."
Simple as that
There are dozens of ways to cheat in elections and all of them are in use all the time.
How would cheating be consistent with caring? And there are obviously numerous ways to cheat.
I am just joking that voters donтАЩt care enough about elections to even show up with a a fake ID or something, citing our very low voter turnout.
The hell it should. This isn't elementary school with 20 kids.
Lockdown Browser. In-class. Problem solved.
My fifth-grade daughterтАЩs classwork is all computerized, standardized, test-driven, cookie-cutter mush. If I have to read the term social-emotional learning in one more school-sent email, I might scream.
The studentтАЩs computers have internet restrictions, so I'm told, but that doesn't stop some students from using Youtube during class.
James Lindsey has stuff to say about SEL. You should be doing more than thinking about screaming.
https://newdiscourses.com/2022/11/social-emotional-learning-sel/
I see SEL as a way to groom obedient automatons, passive and full of fear. LindsayтАЩs theory seems along those lines.
That looks interesting and terrifying. Thank you. I'll have to watch the video later when I have more time.
Thank's for the link.
YW.
ThereтАЩs a huge difference between equal opportunity and equal outcomes. Unfortunately, most people who subscribe to DEI and SEL donтАЩt differentiate. If the outcomes are not the same for everyone, then the problem is the program, not the skill/work ethic of the participant.
The brain is a funny thing, but when I saw тАЬEquity!тАЭ, it brought me back to the first time I saw the poster was popular (maybe still is?) of the three kids of differing heights peering over the fence at a baseball game. тАЬEqualityтАЭ is labeled as all three kids standing on the same size box, with only the tallest kid able to see over the fence, while тАЬEquityтАЭ is the three kids standing on enough boxes that all three can see over the fence. Left unsaid on the poster was the fact that the three kids were grabbing boxes so that they could watch a baseball game for which they didnтАЩt buy tickets.
That cartoon also leaves unsaid the third option, that the kids achieve equity by having the tall kid stand in a hole, so no one can watch the game.
Which is how equity generally plays out in practice, as outlined in everything from Animal Farm to тАЬThe TreesтАЭ by Rush to тАЬHarrison BergeronтАЭ by Vonnegut etc etc. Yet somehow leftist collectivists never seem to learn that тАЬkeeping the trees equal by hatchet, axe and sawтАЭ doesnтАЩt help anyone, just brings everyone down to the lowest common denominator of shittiness.
In practice, "no child left behind" means no child is allowed to get ahead.
It also leaves to the imagination where those kids got those boxes, as well as a supposition that the number of boxes is unlimited, and that the height of each kid was simply a twist of fate, i.e. that it was simply their immutable characteristics that put the shorter kids in this particular conundrum.
God, the more I think about it, the more evil that cartoon is.
Exactly. Technology is a fantastic TOOL. It's not a replacement for learning, but an enhancement to help with learning.
At least sometimes to insure тАЬcorrelationтАЭ. Cheaters should be kicked out of the college.
I went to a university with a very proud tradition of an honor code that we would scrawl out by hand on everything we turned in. The sanction was expulsion from school after a trial before your peers. My impression is that that tradition has been watered down significantly for reasons of тАЬEquityтАЭ.
тАЬEquityтАЭ is the universal poison. It destroys everything it touches.
Graduated college in 2017, we used scantron and paper tests. The way to go. Some professors would use online format for some assignments, but most tests were scantron on paper. But of course this was community college not a Ivy.
If I was your teacher, I would mark you down for not beginning your first sentence with I, not making it clear what you mean by scranton and using a Ivy.
When I first became friends on Facebook with my outstanding high school English teacher from 50 years ago, I was extremely fearful of writing something incorrectly when I posted on her page. As tough as she was in high school, she said she didn't judge informal posting in the same way. I appreciated the reprieve!
Obviously, you were a top English student.
I think you meant тАЬIf I *were* your teacher,тАЭ and @Leenerz wrote тАЬscantron,тАЭ not тАЬscranton,тАЭ but in the spirit of the times IтАЩll let it slide and give you an A+ anyway.
Your attempt at grammar correction would carry more weight if you had begun with тАЬIf I were your teacher.тАЭ Just sayinтАЩ.
This is hardly the place for users to begin correcting othersтАЩ grammar. WeтАЩd be here all day. Let it go.
More golden lessons for youth:
(in a Chinese accent) "Eeng-leeesh Grammah, sin-tahkz, styhl, noht imPOH-tant! Just do! Wha-EVAH!"
Ha, ha, I spent an hour on it! Too much time, indeed. Still working on my first coffee.
And I love your colloquial "Just sayin'." Shot down, with pith!
And, too, without the тАЬIтАЭ, the opening sentence is modified incorrectly.
"Busted flat in Baton Rouge, headin' for the trains,
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans.
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained,
Took us all the way to New Orleans.
I Took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana
And was blowin' sad while Bobby sang the blues,
With them windshield wipers slappin' time and
Bobby clappin' hands we finally sang up every song
That driver knew.
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose,
And nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free,
Feelin' good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues,
And buddy, that was good enough for me,
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee." ...
...
(Music by Kris Kristofferson, lyrics by Kristofferson and Fred Foster)
Hah! Clearly English was not my major :). Scantron is just a paper students fill out with their answers and gets graded by machine. It can be buggy at times so teachers usually end up having to manually look over it to make sure the answers are correct.
For your clip-'n-save file: Scantron┬о
Leenerz
I mean no offense, but the standards today are so low itтАЩs not at all clear. It wouldnтАЩt surprise me if you were a professor at a Ivy. Clear and concise has been replaced by unclear, short and slangy. I assumed scranton was a slangy name for a writing system rather than the city which gave the nation a cognitively impaired POTUS and I have an open mind as to whether the company in question knows what a proper noun is, but I assume it is based in Scranton. Good writing would have required the full name with proper spelling.
Normally I would not dream of criticizing a commenter on grammar or spelling. To so criticize is a far worse offense than any error of grammar, reflecting poorly on the critic.
Yet I rise to Leenerz's good-humored defense. We all make errors. In this case, you are hoisted on your own petard, Mr. Gain.
The correct tense is "If I were your teacher, I would mark ..." It is not "If I was your teacher, I would mark ..."
One might also have used "If I was your teacher, I would have marked ..." or even "If I had been your teacher, I would have marked ..."
I hope you will also give yourself a red mark for mistakenly altering the commenter's correct spelling, "scantron," to your mistaken "scranton." (I do hope "scranton" was not a consequence of "cheating" by using a spell check option, although your subsequent comment suggests you are still unaware of your misreading.) The correct word is the proper noun "Scantron," a registered trademark. The name is sufficiently generic that one could get away with not capitalizing it.
I knew what a Scantron was without it having to be defined. It is reasonable to presume anyone discussing academic cheating knows or can readily infer what a Scantron is, without it having to be (LOL) spelled out for them.
Then there is your failure to enclose the cited "a Ivy" mistake in quotes.
Leenerz, don't let these petty pendants bully you. I would not apologize to them. Each has made unwitting errors in their own comments, and are professing a superiority they have not earned in their own commentary.
тАЬA IvyтАЭ?
ShouldnтАЩt it be тАЬan IvyтАЭ?
This is a cute party and thanks to everyone for the good humor, though it illustrates a dreadful point.
тАЬIтАЩmтАЭ late to this cute partyтАжbutтАжwhy hasnтАЩt anyone caught the catastrophic тАЬa/ANтАЭ Ivy?? :)
Good comment, but I think you meant "these petty pedants", not "these petty pendants", which might more accurately describe some cheap necklaces. Sorry to be so pedantic :).
; ^ )
I like "petty pendants"--it has a certain charm about it even if--or especially-- as a typographical error.
"Neither a borrower nor a 'loner' be." ((Nought Shakespeare)
"Neither a ChatBot nor a petty pendant be" (Nought Shakespeare 3.0)
I agree that "petty pendants" sounds more poetic. But does the author (Alice K) possess the necessary credentials? As I understand it, in many states obtaining a "poetic license" requires at least a BA degree in "Professional Poetics". Students have apparently been cheating on exams by using ChatGPT to write their poems for them, all in the hope that the license will enable them to better engage readers on blogs like this one.
;^ )
Your comment provoked a reconsideration. There are so many accidents of life that open or close a path, a door. I hadn't considered that this noxious ChatGPT might be someone's entry into an interest in poetry and so awaken that interest that, he or she develops it to the point of a readiness to ditch the chatbot device and do real poetry the imaginative way, without crutches or other artificial aids.
I agree, and I think the principle can be expanded beyond poetry; content created by ChatGPT on a variety of subjects could serve to inspire interest in those subjects. In fact, content created by actual humans could also kindle further interest in the subject matter of that content. Just imagine the possibilities: someone reads an article, essay, or book, fiction or non-fiction, and is thus inspired to explore and learn more! Oh, wait: I think this has already been going on for thousands of years :).
Re: ..."Normally I would not dream of criticizing a commenter on grammar or spelling. To so criticize is a far worse offense than any error of grammar, reflecting poorly on the critic. "
Written, I gather, with tongue-in-cheek, yes? --and, so, good for you, if so.
"Typos" are to be forgiven.
But I can't--and so I shan't-- pass over without remark that, as the (newspeak) old saying goes,
"To each _their_ own..." (error).
And then there are all those autocorrection errors that can be difficult to spot.
Damn the knives are sharp
Damn, the knives are sharp! :)
Virtual, fortunately!
Leenerz typed "scantron" which is the correct spelling, but you evidently read it as "scranton."
Sure, a casual reader might not be familiar with Scantron technology, but the misreading is on you.
Sadly IтАЩm a very rusty writer. My job requirements are for me to be concise and short and it is a bad habit of communication for me. But I do agree with the spirit of what youтАЩre communicating, standards are obviously not what they were, and I even remember being one of the few people in my high school English class to actually read the books assigned to us in class. I donтАЩt imagine the move to do more things online has helped that situation at all. Chuckled at the potus comment, clearly I would not want to get it confused with the city!
Doesn't matter how rusty you are. Writing is _always_ time-consuming and pains-taking work. The most accomplised writers have (or used to have) a waste-paper basket full of crumpled paper beside their desks.
Moreover, it takes _more_ time, not less, to be concise. Concision is what's left after the dross has been stripped away.
The trouble is much deeper than your job's circumstances. The fast-forward world "requires" your job's "requirements" to rush to finish.
Hospital signs are going to have to read,
"Our sick and dying patients are as well as our time-constraints allow us to keep them."
Or the old bumper-sticker,
"The parts falling from this car are of the finest British manufacture."
I thought "concision" is a word?
I believed the word was "conciseness" - but I was wrong.
Thank you for teaching me something today :-)
We share a language which is nothing short of marvelous. There are so many English words which are _just_ _right_ but, through germinal ignorance, many of them languish in lexical limbo.
We ..."climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate..."
"Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" is my treasure.
Post, if you would, some of your thoughts on and descriptions of other aspects of teaching and of your students' interests and abilities--no specifics of course, just generalities. I'm always interested to read of teachers' experiences in their classroom work and the life of students generally today as the teachers see that.
Readersaurus, what makes you think I'm a teacher? Heh-heh...
There are many factors that have contributed to the absurd mess that is American education--at all levels. Too many to go into here. But I will say this:
Higher education is a joke. It takes too much of the students time and money for too little of a return. At this point, it is little more than a combination of crazed leftist ideologues who see it as a vehicle of mass indoctrination and simpy careerist administrators and bureaucrats looking for a cushy job where you don't have to work too hard or fear being layed off. The status quo needs to be blown up (figuratively speaking) and started over from scratch.
And again, the students, by and large, understand that college is a joke and act accordingly.
I hadn't thought you were a teacher.
My comment was directed to "Rabid Spirit Animal" (Feb 28) where the post read, "I am only a lowly high school teacher, "....
Oops! Anyway, my reply re: higher ed is a point I'm always looking for an opportunity to amplify.
In a few years these cheating liars will be called ...
"Congressman."
Heh-heh..."Senator Blutarski"
I'd take Bluto over half the folks in Congress now!
"The deeper concern is the morality of a person who just wants a shortcut to the reward."
A problem of no Morals (that there is such a thing as Right & Wrong behavior) being taught?
Rabid, high school teachers are not "lowly," not the good ones anyway. The rest of us owe you a debt of gratitude for what you do.
We're producing a legion of con artists and cheats. Let's pray that most won't decide to be surgeons.
If this is allowed to continue, if this type of corruption simply becomes a part of everyday society, you're looking at the slow death of America and the West. Similar to what we see in countries like Russia, where little corruptions have permeated society to the point it's merely expected, as though it were some bizarre form of taxation, this can destroy a country and its people.
You're right. We've become a nation of rationalizers. Any criminal and/or immoral action is given a litany of excuses. The effect will be reflected in America's productivity. We don't manufacture anything here anymore (thank you Bill NAFTA Clinton) and yet, we are allowing millions of uneducated men and women to cross our borders illegally which is another form of cheating the system.
Death by a thousand corruptions. IтАЩm hopeful a backlash against these anti-merit moralists is underway, but I wonder how bad itтАЩll have to get before the people wake up to the decay thatтАЩs setting in. I think ppl like Jon Stewart have done a masterful job at stigmatizing conservatives as backward, heartless, and stupid, and thatтАЩs made so many millennials averse to ever voting Republican. But, itтАЩs clear the levers of power matter, and the only path at this juncture for the sane adults to grab said lever and restore sanity is through the Republican Party, flawed though it may be. IтАЩll never vote Democrat again until they shed their social revolutionary ideas and utopian fantasies.
Jon Stewart? I was a very small child when Dan Quayle was pilloried all over the news for misspelling potato. I only had a very vague idea that it was really because he dared to defend the rights of children to a natural married family. The damage was done, to my generation right there, though. Late night TV, Letterman, LenoтАжanti-conservative jokes were the norm. Anti-conservative news angles were the norm in local papers and news casts. The undermining of civilization has been happening for a very long time.
In fact, most people have probably never heard of Fulton Sheen and his prophecies of Communist doom for America now coming starkly true, nor, even more, of Pope Paul VIs epic and loathed 1960s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, basically viewmastering todayтАЩs moral decay like a time machine.
DonтАЩt think thatтАЩs going to happen anytime soon but I shocked you ever voted for Democrooks in the first place.
...or engineers!
Check the videos out of Turkey to see what happens when engineering is compromisedтАж
Whether that rubble was produced by engineers' moral faults or by the typical moral faults in corrupt politics is a matter difficult to untangle. It's not necessarily the engineers per se who supervised and allowed the shoddy construction (--not that you claimed it was!). Some _may_ have been complicit--for, in theory, someone has to sign off on the faithful adherence to proper materials and construction practices. But the person who ordered the engineers to shut up and do as they're told was not necessarily himself--in Turkey, very likely "himself"--an engineer.
There are lots of different types of тАЬcheating.тАЭ
It's con artist's and cheat's all the way down.
IMHO this is 100% a parent and societal issue. You get to work with what society gives you. If we give you kids without a moral code, that's a pretty tall order to police.
The powers that be cannot pass the sniff test. Our corrupt government and political parties are teaching everyone thats its cool to be dishonest and everyone turns the other way. America is a mess.
Off topic: Left wing government sponsored antisemitism.
Anti-Semitism is being introduced to the school curricula of many schools nationwide.
In California, critical race theory has been rechristened тАЬethnic studiesтАЭ and has broadened its line of attack. In addition to white people, ethnic studies have added Jewish people and the Jewish homeland of Israel to the list of racist and oppressive entities. The anti-Israel and anti-Jewish curriculum includes strong support for Palestinians, including classroom decorations such as a Palestinian flag and a drive to honor тАЬPalestinian mothers with children in Israeli jails.тАЭ Additionally, Israel is described as a тАЬcolonial settler stateтАЭ founded тАЬthrough genocide.тАЭ
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/09/23/ethnic_studies_promote_antisemitism_bigotry_in_us_schools_148228.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-parents-say-no-to-anti-semitic-ethnic-studies-public-school-children-classroom-israel-anti-semitic-11652389663
тАЬThe California programs are especially dangerous. Anti-Israel ideology and anti-Zionism are fully embraced. Palestinian activists work with teachers. Some of the materials include maps with no Israel.тАЭ Israel is also portrayed as an illegal occupier.
https://www.jewishboston.com/read/does-ethnic-studies-have-a-jewish-problem/
Just one more reason to despise the left wing nut cases. I believe these NAZIs permeate the Dem/Soc party and aren't just a small fringe group. On top of being disgusting, it is dangerous.
Remember, when you go to the polls in 2014, vote for the neo NAZI/Dem/Soc party.
Well I guess the good news is apparently students wonтАЩt actually be reading any of this crap as they are too busy cheating to get ahead
I am saddened, but not shocked. The rise of anti-Semitism is apparent, as is the rise of anti-Americanism. That it is gaining steam in California is hardly a surprise or a shock. Thank you for the info and the reading material. Take care.
I understand what you're saying, Lonesome, as criticism of Israel is suffused with Anti Semitism.
However it must be said, and please counter me if necessary - Netanyahu at this moment is doing the supporters of Israel amongst us no favours as he craters to the ultra Orthodox parties girding his government coalition in his attempts to legislate Israel's judiciary's power away from them. The opposition to this in Israel itself is intense, and in the Jewish diaspora here at home.
Whether what he's doing is anti democratic or not is open for debate - but if sympathy for Israel was waning before, it is worse now.
It is not all anti-Zionist. It is also anti-Jewish. "The Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium explicitly states on its website that тАЬCritical Race Theory is one of the many theoretical lenses used in Ethnic Studies.тАЭ LESMC has a history of pushing schools to adopt anti-Israel and anti-Jewish lessons and advocacy with its program."
I pretty sure but I could be wrong but NAZI Germany was anti-Jewish. Antisemitism worldwide is on the rise. We certainly don't need to be teaching it in our schools.
I'm stunned! Stunned, I'm telling you that a hard core hard left state like California would be a hub of government sponsored anti-Jewish classes. Aren't "liberals" supposed to be diverse and inclusive and never judge people by their race, color or creed? Anyway, that is what those left wing hypocrites tell everybody?
Thank you for sharing this - I am a parent volunteer for the "ethnic curriculum"for my school board, the language that the state provided is already heavily "contaminated"with marxists elements. We are in the process of selecting the curriculum - this thing should have been scraped all together,
The moral code that you and I might recognize, Bruce, has now been replaced by an influencer on TikTok or Instagram. Whatever code this latest generation is following, it's as pliable as hell.
It is often conditional based on whether or not a man is a progressive or a conservative. Another commenter referenced "Me Too!" and those crazies in the pink hats are more proof of your statement. Pliable....oh yeah. Some of those women are contortionists.
I see more of a punishment problem, Universities doesn't expel students, behavior will continue.
Unless of course there is a #metoo allegation.
That's a good point. But the universities don't care....tuition money. Hard to address that one.
That's precisely the issue. I saw it quite a lot in my own career. On occasion I recall blurting out, "who the hell raised you, a pack of wolves?" I was lucky, I was 'the boss'. Nevertheless, it was shocking and made me sad to see. Take care.
a pack of wolves eat the young that dont measure up. maybe that is the solution. shades of Jonathan Swift
Parents can provide a moral foundation but unless the child is placed in a cocoon, which creates other problems, after a point peer pressure rules for most.
You're right; but my dad rode my behind about 'a moral compass' on a regular basis til the day he passed. I was 40.:-).
I consider myself one of the luckiest people alive, because while my dad never rode my behind, he simply set the example by being the best, most honest man he could. I never cheated, because I knew that would disappoint him and shame him.
All about the role model, huh? Which makes me speculate that most of the cheaters fo not have those and most of the non-cheaters do. A consequence of the village rearing the children? Are they learning that any means justify the desired goal?
You are one of the luckiest people alive! God love you and your dad. I totally understand how you feel about meeting a standard just because...Dad. (Otherwise, who knows how I would have turned out? I was not the easiest daughter to raise..:-).)
I am really happy for your blessing; it matters when people like our dads show us the way. We were lucky. God bless you and your family. Take care.
Good for your dad. And for you. I was blessed with a great dad too. He said do the right thing. Not the easy thing. Not the popular thing. Not the fun thing. . . . The right thing.
Our children are in their 20s. This is how we have brought them up. My youngest is in her final year at uni. We've talked about cheating, and how she would really only be cheating herself. (also she has to write referenced papers, which ChatGPT can't do - yet)
Thankfully a life of setting standards through our own conduct has rubbed off. They are all good kids, that understand there are no REAL shortcuts in life.
I am always gratified to read comments like yours who raise their kids with a strong moral compass. You bless us all by doing that. God bless you all.
Thank you for saying that. Those dads are a blessing to be sure. Daddy also used to say.."Don't expect me to give you a gold star for doing what you're supposed to do." And the big one.."I don't remember every telling you that doing the right thing was going to be easy.' Damn we were lucky! God bless them, and God bless you.
I take such comfort in knowing there are commonalities between you, me, and the larger society. God bless and keep you.
Same. And thank you so much.
The kids who donтАЩt cheat are punished (so to speak) w a тАШvalidтАЩ grade. I wonтАЩt be trusting any young doctors or finance people going forward unless they graduated with a 3.0. Top of the class/with honors has lost all meaning.
If only you could do that. The LCME (the accrediting organization for medical schools) has made it so that ALL medical schools are now pass/fail and have exactly the same "work/life balance -- take the test at home" issues as are described here -- student satisfaction top of the list of "important" certification criteria. Even the National Boards are now pass/fail. Of course, the reason for all this is the lowering of admission standards for...equity. So, although always promised "we would NEVER lower graduation standards" that is the first thing they did. So you have no idea what their GPA was -- and you never will.
In Australia, the Specialist medical colleges are affected by the woke virus as well. The quality if training is way down, such as reducing the number of procedures completed per year.
The young specialists graduating are seriously under-done. Always see a specialist who is 45+ years old.
Medical boards have always been pass fail
Terrifying.
This is absolutely terrifying. Gender studies majors? The impact if they know nothing is very indirect - they vote for idiots, of course, they wreak havoc, but they arenтАЩt flying airplanes, doing brain surgery etc.
But some people are, actually, drilling into other peopleтАЩs skulls. Pass/fail and тАЬequityтАЭ medical degrees have real consequences there.
So in surgery they are going to Google or YouTube the procedure? It appears we are going backwards in the name of education.
How did this happen so quickly?
Covid. It was well on its way before that, but covid accelerated it, as it did everything else. Not a coincidence, of course.
Like going broke: gradually at first, then all of a sudden.
The LCME move toward "equity" has been going on for at least a decade. It just took a while for all of the dominoes (e.g., move to pass/fail, etc.) to fall. This was inevitable when the LCME forced the admission requirements to change. For many years, medical school admissions requirements were: 1) The mental ability to take on the more-than-difficult medical curriculum, measured primarily through rigorous evaluation of coursework, GPA and MCAT (the admissions test) scores; 2) The commitment to putting in the work (never a discussion of "work/life balance" in medical school -- to be a doctor, your work is your life, for all the good and bad that engenders); and 3) The deep desire to make every patient's life better and to cure/diagnose/help as many as it was possible to help. We had refined this selection process over decades and it resulted in many good doctors.
The LCME decided that this was all wrong and that admissions should not reflect the above -- because...equity. Now the three admissions criteria are: 1) demographic score; 2) Social Justice Warrior/Wokeness score; and 3) "distance travelled" score. And a few bonus points for following some doctor around. I wish I were exaggerating, but I am not.
So this insidious process has been going on for 10-15 years. The manifestations are just now beginning to show. Most of my colleagues will not see any physician under 45. It is not that there are not good ones...there are. You just have no way to ever figure out which are good and which are bad. And that is deliberate.
Be very afraid, I fear.
"Most of my colleagues will not see any physician under 45" - I just wrote that in another reply !
I agree wholeheartedly with your observations.
In Australia the specialist colleges won't ever sanction the protected species, not matter how bad they are.
Thank you so much for your very informative response. I am a retired high school teacher and administrator, and I am so sad to read your response as well as the comments of others on this whole thread. I have many thoughts about it; suffice it to say, we are in tough times in our country. The young people who are now doctors and engineers (whom I had the pleasure to teach many years ago) will be the ones we will still be able to trust. I just had a conversation with a man last night wanting my opinion on which high school his son should attend....one of my many points to him was the value of the education - versus his interest in the grades his son would get that would allow him to attend "top colleges." I hope I dissuaded him from that as one of his many concerns....so tired of this approach vs. the value of learning. All the best to you, Dr. K.
Interesting idea. But once understood, would likely result in those people lying about their GPAs to you to.
Exactly.
Rather, I discount _all_ "young people's" intellect as the product of scammers, skaters and light-weights who've never turned a page of a book voluntarily, never had a serious thought from they didn't run screaming. Now, that's going to be unfair, unjustified, in a certain number of cases. But the point is that this off-the-cuff judgement is just that, a handy reference tool, not a substitute for actually getting to know a person's genuine qualities by doing that rare thing: spending extended time getting to know him.
ChatGPT shall never replace old fashioned courtship rituals. One cannot "mail-in" one's love and devotion as a bot-product's output.
Meanwhile, a lot of truly crappy stuff is going to be proposed, tried, and it's going to crash and burn--when "the rubber hits the road."
It's that reputation, deserved or not, which is going to mark and harm these generations. I now scoff at Ivy League graduates' credentials.
A Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford or Wharton, Oxford or Cambridge college diploma, huh?
"BFD", sonny.
They are what will crash and burn
"It's that reputation, deserved or not, which is going to mark and harm these generations"
To paraphrase an old colleague, "Sooner or later the tide rolls out, and for those who've been swimming naked, everyone gets to see what they've got".
If you can lie to everyone in the entire country and be rewarded with total power and never be held accountable, why would you ever be honest? This is the example penetrating all of our young skulls full of mush.
Look at our leadership. We have a President who plagiarized in college (https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html), adopted British politician Neil Kinnock's biography as his own in 1987, claims to have gone to a black church when in high school, says he was raised in a Puerto Rican community, and, through his press secretary, tells America that our southern border is secure. And that just scratches the surface. (Many people say Trump lied more, and it was Obama that lied about keeping your doctor to sell the Affordable Care Act.) Of course, we have Rep. George Santos (R-NY) who lied about virtually everything while campaigning for Congress. If there's no accountability at the top, maybe a lack of accountability for students is understandable. It's still terribly sad.
When you lower standards for admittance (affirmative action), you also have to lower standards for everything else.
The rest of the students simply take advantage.
Afraid you're right. Parents are the first ones to scream at teachers for not giving their kids good grades; teachers get yelled at by admin for same, and the ball just keeps rolling downhill. Although I have to think that the number of parents that do that are small and it takes courage to fight the necessary battles to keep said ball from rolling downhill...but maybe I'm just retaining an unreasonable shred of optimism.
I was an adjunct at a private university for a few years (school of ed). My students were all senior undergrads in one section or graduate students for the other. The grad students put out quality work and effort.
The quality of work the undergrad seniors produced was astonishingly bad. I am not sure if it was indifference or ineptitude, but the end result is the same: 22-23 year old adults coming out of college with below average skills and/or a lack of motivation to produce quality work. Yet they have the false notion that they're qualified and therefore entitled to a job and premium compensation because they 'have a degree' and likely had pretty good grades the whole time, too. It's shameful.
As a business owner, we've seen it time and again. They think they're worth more than they are and have unreasonable demands. They usually don't last long.
There is no accountability in our country.
There is still or someone wouldn't have written this article...but under attack like many, many things of value. But 1 person standing up can be seen...
I bet Scot Adams would disagree with you.
IтАЩd hardly call what a mob hands out accountability.
Let's just call it negative feedback then.
This is the understatement of the decade, maybe past 2-3 decades
The woke mob that controls the campus does not believe in merit, so why should they be concerned with cheating. Woke neo-Marxism is destroying the fabric of America.
...but somehow they are offended by George Santos. Imagine if he had a (D) next to his name.