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Teaching - Promotion of honesty or dishonesty? (No spam)

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Sailor Saturn
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Teaching - Promotion of honesty or dishonesty? (No spam)

Post by Sailor Saturn »

In my World Religions class, my professor told us that on the second test, if we read the chapters in the book on what we were studying, he could gauruntee that we'd get four of the questions right and that if we didn't read them, he could garauntee that we'd get them wrong. First off, does this suggest that the questions will be asking about something that is in the book but will not be discussed in class, or does it suggest something else? :confused:

It turns out that the questions were "Which applies to you about this chapter? a.)Read all of it, b.) read most of it, c.) read some of it, or d.) read none of it." (There were a total of four chapters.)

Okay, so, because of his early statement about the garaunteeing, I took this as a challenge, which is a tendancy I have. I decided not to read the chapters to see what the result would be. I went ahead and read one of the chapters because it was about Shinto and I was specifically interested in learning more about it because I am very interested in Japanese culture as a whole.

So, I take the test, and on three of those questions, I answer d, while on the other, I answer a. I correctly answered each of those questions because I didn't read those three chapters, but I did read that other chapter. For the 3 I answered d on, I got them marked wrong. For the one I answered a on, I got it marked right.

Here's what the professor does. If you answer a, b, or c, then you get the answer right. If you mark d, you get it wrong.

This, in turn, promotes lying and answering a, b, or c so that you get the points instead of answering honestly with d and not getting points.

Do you think that this promotion of dishonesty is good, or do you think that the teacher should be promoting honesty?

I plan on discussing this with him tomorrow. And I'm not all upset over this because of my grade. I got an A on the test. I just know that I should've had a 97 rather than a 93. (Each question is worth 1.5 points, I only legitimately answered 2 questions wrong) And I am upset over the blatant promotion of dishonesty that he, as a teacher, is providing to his students, which goes against what he so highly and strongly promoted being the opinion of Confucius on the Teacher/Student relationship. :rolleyes:
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Post by C Elegans »

Hm, I can see what you mean by promoting dishonestly, but isn't there also the possibility that the teacher meant to award reading the book, ie he assumes the students are going to reply honestly and thus you get a few extra points for having read the book?
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Post by Maharlika »

The way I see it, this "guarantee" that your teacher spoke of, is more like a "guarantee" that his students will take the bait and read the texts.

To be honest, I sense no "malice (afa promoting dishonesty) in his style. However, there could be certain loopholes that could be missconstrued as something not good. :)

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Post by Sailor Saturn »

Originally posted by C Elegans
Hm, I can see what you mean by promoting dishonestly, but isn't there also the possibility that the teacher meant to award reading the book, ie he assumes the students are going to reply honestly and thus you get a few extra points for having read the book?
I could understand doing that as extracredit, but the way he did it, you get points taken off for not reading the book, even though you literally gave the correct answer by saying you ddn't read it(if you actually didn't read it). In fact, I think it's a great idea, for extra credit, though it is still, sorta promoting dishonesty, yet at the same time, it's the teacher showing that he trusts the students to be honest. But deducting for answer a question correctly? I just can't see that as anything but cheating people out of the grade they deserve. It doesn't even test their knowledge on the subject matter. :(

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Maybe he did mean good, but he still did wrong.

One of the biggest problems in this specific situation is that he admittedly doesn't really care if the class does good or bad because he has no grading curve(or whatever they call it) because he is the only one that teaches World Religions at this school. :(
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Post by Sailor Saturn »

Originally posted by Maharlika
The way I see it, this "guarantee" that your teacher spoke of, is more like a "guarantee" that his students will take the bait and read the texts.
If this is the case, then are there no teachers prepared for students like me? :p

Actually, I'm not the only one upset over this. In fact, unlike would usually be the case, I wasn't the one to speak up in class against this when we realized what had happened. He said, and I quote, "If you didn't read the text, do you really think you deserve the points?" I find his statement ridiculous because he isn't punishing us for not reading the text. He's punishing us for being honest about the fact that we didn't read the text.

When I read the question when taking the test, I was 99% sure that this is what he would do, mark wrong those who said they didn't read the text. Thus, I very easily could have cheated and lied and said that I did read the chapters. However, I have never cheated on a test and I never will cheat on a test, thus I must answer the question honestly with the fact that I did not read the text. Thus, my honest answer is the correct answer to the question, "Which applies to you?" Thus, the professor marked wrong three questions that I answered 100% accurately and thus correctly.

Um...I'm going to bed now. Continue discussing as much on this as you'd like. I'll give an account of the results of confronting the professor tomorrow when I get home from my classes. :)
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Post by C Elegans »

Originally posted by Sailor Saturn
I could understand doing that as extracredit, but the way he did it, you get points taken off for not reading the book, even though you literally gave the correct answer by saying you ddn't read it(if you actually didn't read it). In fact, I think it's a great idea, for extra credit, though it is still, sorta promoting dishonesty, yet at the same time, it's the teacher showing that he trusts the students to be honest. But deducting for answer a question correctly? I just can't see that as anything but cheating people out of the grade they deserve. It doesn't even test their knowledge on the subject matter. :(
If reading the book was not mandatory for the course in general, I don't think not reading it should result in not being able to reach max point at the test. When I was at uni, we sometimes had the extracredit system, where, if you read literature that wasn't mandatory or you wrote an essay that wasn't mandatory, you got let's say 10 extra points to your test, so that meant you only needed to score 90/100 to get max point at a test. However, you never got deduction for not doing extra assignments, so you could also score 100 by anwering the test questions correctly.
One of the biggest problems in this specific situation is that he admittedly doesn't really care if the class does good or bad because he has no grading curve(or whatever they call it) because he is the only one that teaches World Religions at this school. :(
Don't you have national standardised comparison between schools in the US? In Sweden, statistics from all schools are collected and a national grade curve is calculated. So it doesn't matter if somebody is the only teacher at a school, they still use the national grading curve (or whatever it is called).
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Post by CM »

I have a very similar case.
I have this one teacher who leaves the class for 30 40 min during our exams.
And people blatantly cheat.
I don't, i will give out answers, but i will never take any ones else's answers.
If i don't know, i don't know.
I don't cheat.

But some do score better than me, and the teacher knows that they have cheated, yet he grades them fairly.
The reason he knows they cheated is because it is obvious.
It was an economics class which is a requirement for all International Relations students.
I was the only Econ BA there.
For the rest it was their first econ class and some would confuse the supply and demand graphs regularily in class.

The teacher doesn't care, it is the i don't know i can't do anything policy.
Since he hasn't seen it he can't do anything.

Students actively take advantage of this, cheating in all of his classes and the ones who don't cheat ultimately get a worse grade, as they did not discuss the question with others.

This i think is also a promotion of dishonesty, as he ignores the cheating infront of him.
He made a comment once in my 3 years of college and said, how can 12 people get the same wrong answer?
And that is where he left it.

Just adding another case, and for your example SS i have no idea what to say!
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Post by C Elegans »

@CM: Your situation sounds really bad, it this teacher really concerned with teaching? Also, it's is highly unfair to give high grades to students although he knows they are cheating. Have you discussed this with the teacher? With the principle/head or whater the teacher's boss is called?

Oh, I'm almost late for work, I'll pick up on this thread later.
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Post by Maharlika »

@Fas

I share CE's suggestion and concern for this. However I do not know your teacher and the reasons for his indifferent and unfair perspective in such matters, therefore I could not give a conclusive statement other than agree with CE's suggestion.

On the other hand, to be "evil" about it :rolleyes: , I think that this teacher of yours has no right to be a teacher at face value.

There's nothing like a scarred soul inflicted by an educator to his student. :mad:

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Post by Jace »

I don't know what this teacher was trying to demonstrate by those questions, but about the only lesson I could take from it is "above all else be true to yourself".

If your ethics tell you to take advantage of the situation then do so.

If you value truth then be truthfull.

It would be a much harder (and telling) test if there was more at stake than 6% of a grade mark.
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Post by Sailor Saturn »

Originally posted by C Elegans
If reading the book was not mandatory for the course in general, I don't think not reading it should result in not being able to reach max point at the test. When I was at uni, we sometimes had the extracredit system, where, if you read literature that wasn't mandatory or you wrote an essay that wasn't mandatory, you got let's say 10 extra points to your test, so that meant you only needed to score 90/100 to get max point at a test. However, you never got deduction for not doing extra assignments, so you could also score 100 by anwering the test questions correctly.
While it is the class textbook, reading it is not mandatory, as everything that is on the tests(except for those 4 questions) is talked about in class or at least written on the board.

I discussed it with him yesterday after class and he told me that, because I had been honest in answering the questions and came to him to discuss the 'ethics' of it, he would have gone ahead and given me the points that were marked off if it would've had enough affect to change my letter grade(such as C to B or B to A), but that since I already had an A for the test(and in the class), he wasn't going to. I went ahead and left it at that, though we spent a while discussing whether or not he was promoting dishonesty. He seems to be under the impression that he is more promoting honesty than dishonesty. He also assumes that, since the majority of the class answered that they had read at least some of the book, that means that his goal of getting them to read the books was accomplished. I mentioned that it would be better for those questions to be extra credit rather than deduct points if you didn't read the text. He said he'd take it under consideration. I just hope he takes it under more consideration than he does the other things I've told him(such as that it is kamikaze, not kamikazi).

Don't you have national standardised comparison between schools in the US? In Sweden, statistics from all schools are collected and a national grade curve is calculated. So it doesn't matter if somebody is the only teacher at a school, they still use the national grading curve (or whatever it is called).
I really don't know much at all about the grade curve stuff. The first I ever knew about it was when my Intro to Psychology professor told us about it(it had something to do with something we were studying in class) last spring. It's possible that if the use does have a national standardized comparison between schools, it is of the mandatory classes, such as Eng 101 and 102 and classes that are mandatory for majors. As far as I know, at least at CAC, World Religions isn't mandatory for any of the majors, it is merely one of many classes that can be chosen from fill one of the non-major-related requirements.

Perhaps someone else could provide some more knowledge about how the grading curve works in the US?
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Post by Sailor Saturn »

Originally posted by Jace
I don't know what this teacher was trying to demonstrate by those questions, but about the only lesson I could take from it is "above all else be true to yourself".

If your ethics tell you to take advantage of the situation then do so.

If you value truth then be truthfull.

It would be a much harder (and telling) test if there was more at stake than 6% of a grade mark.
It's completely possible that's what he's going for. This professor teaches 3 different classes that I know of. One is World Religions, another is Philosophy, and another is an Ethics class.
Protected by Saturn, Planet of Silence... I am the soldier of death and rebirth...I am Sailor Saturn.

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Mistress 9: You will be spammed. Your psychotic and spamming distinctiveness will be added to the board. Resistance is futile. *evil laugh*

Ain't she wonderful? ¬_¬

I knew I had moree in common with BS than was first apparent~Yshania

[color=sky blue]The male mind is nothing but a plaything of the woman's body.~My Variation on Nietzsche's Theme[/color]

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Post by ltldrgn1 »

Sorry to jump in here, but in response to curving in the U.S. it is solely at the discression of the professor. Some of my Profs. curve heavily, some not at all. Some also allow you to correct all of your wrong answers and turn them back in for some extra points (if no one got a perfect test. Hope that this answers your questions.
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