The belief that our American children are retards has been proven yet again to me.
Yesterday I am sitting in my sociology class and I can't help but overhear the girl sitting next to me. She is asking her friend about the paper we had due that morning. She had to research the topic Indian government. Her question was... Did you really write your paper or did you just cut and paste it from the internet? Her equally dumb friend replied..."dah, I can't write I just copied it from Wikipedia".
After rolling my eyes about 100 times I decide I am going to enlighten these two morons about a little thing called plagerism.
I say to them... "You do realize that what you did is plagerism right"? Their blank stares told me that no they did not know what I was talking about. I tried to explain that when you use something that has already been written by someone else you have to cite it and can't take the credit for someone else's work. Easy enough, common sense, right?
Wrong.
Their reply to my infinite wisdom....
"Well Ms. S. didn't say that we had to use citations".
Really stupid. Isn't this common knowledge? What the fuck are we teaching kids in school? I don't know about you but I just assumed that everyone knew the rules about copyrights and plagerism and doing your OWN work?!
I guess not.
God I cant wait to be done with school.
I would also like to say that I miss Ron, hope you're enjoying your intermission buddy, but please hurry back; the withdrawl is getting pretty bad over here!
I hear ya, chica. Back in college (a thousand years ago) I did an assignment for my creative writing class. It was a short story entitled "Victory for the Old Commander" or something like that. I worked very hard on my plot and character development and was quite pleased with the final product. I was really hoping for an A. What I got was a call from my English professor to please meet him in his office. I went and was met by a very grim expression. He told me he wanted to discuss my paper and would I please have a seat. The first thing out of his mouth was "Have you ever heard of Graham Greene?" I said no. Next he asked me, "Do you know what the word 'plagiarism' means?" I didn't, so he explained. All the air left the room. Apparently, my story was very similar to the short story "The Destructors" by Graham Greene. I was very confused. Was he accusing me of cheating? After I'd worked so hard on my story? I didn't copy anything... not the characters, not the plot, not the prose... yet I was being interrogated for what turned out to be purely coincidental. Freaky. Freaky and upsetting. I felt so ashamed. Just to be questioned in that manner, to be suspected. I was a serious student and yet, I would forever live under a cloud of suspicion. In a way, I should have been celebrating the fact that I had a parallel creative mindset with a legitimate famous author, and yet I felt dirty. I don't remember the grade I got on that story because after that moment it didn't matter any more. My integrity was questioned and I felt ruined by that.
ReplyDeleteSo my point is... things sure have changed. When I went to school it was about learning and being challenged and growing. And sometimes even when you did everything right, you still got crushed. These days, with all the technical advances and opportunities to cut and paste, no wonder our kids are graduating with degrees and skulls full of cobwebs.
Not you though. You're working your ass off and have your head {minus cobwebs} screwed on straight. Good for you! I'm glad you spoke up and called those girls out. After all - ignorance of the law, is no excuse for breaking it, inside the classroom or out.
Alix,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear that happened to you, there's nothing worse than having your integrity questioned. I had a similiar experience in high school. In my senior english class we had to write a research paper and I did mine on cocaine (which I was addicted to at the time) and I worked really hard on. When I turned it in my teacher reported me and actually wrote on my paper, "this looks like the work of a more advanced student". She gave me an F! I tried to fight it but my track record went against me and the administration sided with the teacher. I'll never foret that feeling as long as I live, it was awful.
And you're so right ignorance of the law is no excuse, do you think I should say something to the instructor?
Dude....o.0 That's pretty dumb. I learned about that kinda thing way back in elementary school for pete's sake. And that's with skipping over half the classes. It's funny how I always thought that even if people weren't that intelligent they would at least still have common sense, that's something innate in people right? Haha...I guess not.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly how you feel. I thought that my classmates were dumb, but younger kids are even dumber... For instance, my classmates started smoking last year, these kids (they are 12) start smoking right now!
ReplyDeletePlease, I can't believe that after everything humankind has been through, we still can't teach our children well! Humankind is on the process of involution, children aren't better than their parents, they are worse!
Which makes me wonder, how far will the world go with this kind of youth?
wow.
ReplyDeleteno kidding i just asked my 10 YEAR OLD daughter about a paper she did last year and asked if she would be allowed to look on the internet and simply cut and paste someone else's work, and turn it in as her own...her response was, 'uhh no?? thats cheating and i learned that when i was in the 2nd GRADE!'
she didnt remember the exact term but she did know the shit was wrong! which is alot more than i can say for these heifer's!
Haley, Gavin, Makita and Sammy;
ReplyDeleteyes I know as unbelievable as it sounds this is a true look into how truly stupid and lazy the kids are today. Thank you for all your comments and I apologize for taking the lazy way out and doing a group reply but I am not feeling well and must take my ass to bed. Everyone enjoy their evening and I'll catch up with yinz soon!
maybe i should go back to college again
ReplyDeletemaybe this time around i would look like a genius
Crib
ReplyDeleteYes you should definately go back to school, but you have to make sure it is one like I attend that apparently doesn't frown upon plagerism. Now even that retard guy from my english class can look like a freakin genius!