Education’s challenges
The article by Wu Po-hsuan and Kayleigh Madjar (“Educators urge paradigm shift on tackling cheating,” Dec. 2, page 2) highlights one serious challenge that university professors face: The inclination of some — not all, I hasten to emphasize — students to “take the easy way out” by cheating on exams and other assignments.
I have never, as a college professor, emphasized rote memorization as the way to “learn” a subject. Rather, I focus on understanding, and challenge my students to give their interpretation of a topic, as I emphasize: “I want your thoughts, not someone else’s.” I also make it a point to do a quick database search when I suspect that a student has “borrowed” someone else’s words. Again, I emphasize to my students: “I know how you write. If what you hand in as a completed assignment doesn’t ‘feel’ right, I will check it out.”
College is truly a challenge for any person, and I believe it is incumbent on the professor — and the student’s faculty adviser — to pay attention and be proactive in offering guidance and reassurance. Students more often than not feel pressured to “make all As” in their work. While that is, indeed, a noble goal, we are not all Albert Einstein, who, by the way, did not do well in other areas of his studies.
Kirk Hazlett
adjunct professor, University of Tampa
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