I feel like from an early age, it's been drilled into me to never cheat or plagiarize. Doesn't mean that it never happened, but at least I was aware that I was breaking the rules. Here, not so much. I ended up having the most frustrating class last Thursday when I spent about an hour and a half convincing these two high schoolers that not only was plagiarism immoral, they just weren't skilled enough to get away with it. It was the second argument that stuck.
To give a bit of context, these two kids are taking the SSATs which is an exam usually reserved for private boarding schools. However, these siblings are moving to Canada and are taking the exam in order to be placed in classes. I was supposed to teach them the essay section. Funny fact, the essay section doesn't actually count for anything but it is sent to the schools for teachers to see. In a way, I think this section is more important than the others since these aren't just scores but the actual work produced by the students. One of the biggest issues with this system is that it is geared towards native English speakers. Clearly it is an English test designed to gauge ability but all of the essay questions are in the form of idioms. Idioms are so specialized that even understanding every single word won't help you figure out the meaning. For example, the students were presented with the saying, "never judge a book by its cover." They thought it literally meant that you shouldn't guess the story of a novel by only looking at the picture. Their argument was that publishers try everything to sell books, even going to the extent of putting images that are not related to the material inside. While these students do lack a critical depth, I don't think they should be faulted for misunderstanding that this is an idiom and therefore can't be read by a surface explanation.
In any case, the way that essays are written in Hong Kong is very different from stateside, from Canada, from most of the Western world. The examination system is much more centered on letter and suggestion writing rather than seemingly objective and argumentative essays. Their view of a thesis statement is merely a statement of opinion rather than providing a structure for the rest of the paper. They are encouraged to use "I" and rhetorical questions. For the record, I HATE rhetorical questions. Barely anything irks me more than a rhetorical question. Do I see a point to rhetorical questions? No. Since I'm one of those people that always hits the upper limit to a page requirement, the biggest thing I've had to work on is cutting down and making my writing succinct (Hah! Don't have to do it on my blog!). I learned real early to cut down on extraneous devices such as rhetorical questions. Unfortunately, here they teach this style as a way to vary sentence construction.
I will stop myself before I go into a full on rant about the issues I see with writing here... Anyway, it's been around two months that I've been teaching this course. By the end, I actually ended up creating a full essay template. All they had to do was fill in the blanks. This is because they had the worst time actually giving any context to the examples that they decided to use. They continually assumed knowledge about a subject. Here is an example:
"That guy wanted money. But she didn't want to give money. So he divorced her and took the money. Therefore not all that glitters is gold."
I wish I were joking.
So, moving onto the plagiarism fiasco. The last lesson before they were supposed to take the exam, I decided to just review everything that we had gone through and answer any questions that they had. Weellllllll, one of the first questions I was asked was, "but what if we just copied the material from online and gave that in?" I then proceeded to give them a very serious talk about plagiarism and how it is wrong. I even talked about the University of Virginia and its honor code, which gets you kicked out if you cheat. They nodded very seriously the whole time I was talking and at the end asked me, "but how will anyone know?" I then had to give a spiel about how obvious it is to the teacher when a student plagiarizes. I even brought up an instance that had happened in the class when the brother plagiarized an entire essay on capital punishment... I explained how complexity of language, sentence structure, argument, and statistics give them away and that they won't get away with it. Again with the nodding in agreement, followed by, "but will anything that bad happen to us? Maybe it won't be noticed and even if it is, it can't be that serious, right?"
I wanted to tear out my hair in frustration.
Never have I actually had to argue against a sea of "buts" when it comes to cheating! I then reiterated all of the penalties: being kicked out, receiving a zero, failing out, etc. Again, with the nodding, again followed with, "but what if we read 'Romeo and Juliet' and I don't understand? What should I do then?" WEEEELLLLLLL, you could maybe try and see if you might ask your teacher or a fellow student? Maybe?
Finally, I asked for reinforcements. My boss came in and gave them a talking to in Cantonese all about sophisticated computer equipment that would scan and check for plagiarism.
Boss: "These systems check every four or five words and you can't fool them!"
Students: "But, what if we only copy every three words?"
...
After an hour and a half of our combined efforts, I think we finally impressed on them that they would definitely get caught. More frustrating was that they weren't understanding the disservice done to the original author, the disservice done to themselves by removing the need for original thought and opinion. After being spoon-fed rote memorization, I understand that it is a daunting task to actually try to critically analyze anything for yourself but I feel like this is the true value of education. To be able to think for yourself and form your own opinions and be able to defend them with researched and reasoned responses.
This is not just a problem for these two students but one endemic to this type of system. One of the most troubling aspects of my experience is that this is occurring in Hong Kong, one of the most metropolitan and international cities in the world.
Here is a link to a very interesting article on Plagiarism in China:
It's pretty interesting to keep clicking on related links. The picture presented is at odds with the overwhelming media presentation of a society poised to overtake the rest of the world. Without authentic research and the drive to question existing knowledge, no nation can hope to be the hegemonic power (haha, haven't had to use that word since last year! Woot no more foreign affairs for me!).
Honestly this entry is not meant to be a dig at any nation or a true political evaluation of the current geo-political climate. This is just me venting about a frustrating experience. Here's to hoping that these two students were an anomaly.
Now, I'll leave you with a link to some amazing photos of glaciers! I'll post some of my own next time =)
By the way, it is now a goal of mine to explore glacier caves at some point in time.
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