The other day I saw a quote that
reminded me of Louis Menand’s recent article, “Live and Learn.”
The quote went like this, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” If knowledge is so
limited, is the education that we are obtaining of any value in this progressing
civilization?
Coming from a high school as
competitive as mine, I learned to run with the herd so to speak or risk getting left behind in the dust; it was a
school where the quantity of classes was always more important to students then
the quality of those classes to each individual. But there was an even more
cutthroat school just under an hour away from me, where 1 in 4 attend an ivy-league university, home to 4 Nobel laureates, a high school that students
strive to attend. Yet, once there, they feel so much pressure to achieve.
Recently, this specialized New York City High School, Stuyvesant, has been at
the center of a major cheating scandal.
This past June, during finals
season, over 80 students were embroiled in a widespread cheating scandal involving
text messages of exams. Only 12 of the 80+ were suspended while 54 others lost the senior privilege to leave campus during off periods. Additionally, the
principal of the school at the time, Stanley Teital, resigned while
investigation of the scandal continues to unfold.
 |
| New York Times Op-ed Columist: Joe Nocera |
The New York Times published another article, as a follow-up, discussing the basis of cheating and their justification of cheating from the perspective of Stuyvesant students. As the
most elite school in the nation accepting the cream of the crop from all over
the 5 boroughs of New York City, it is no wonder there is this pressure to do
well. As many students claimed, it’s a numbers game. In a sense the only way to
succeed, as measured by acceptance to an ivy-league university or success in
competitions like Intel STS or Siemens Science Competition, is to play the
game. The nature of this environment is caustic and Machiavellian as a majority
of the students believe the “ends justify the means.”
This compromise of academic
integrity in order to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend a
prestigious university with the exact same atmosphere as Stuyvesant is one that
many students face. However,
as times continue to change, this pressure continues to build. But as the new
principal Jie Zhang attempts to quell the growing cheating, one is left
wondering, whether a society that drills academic excellence (numbers) over
pure learning and applying knowledge, is actually disseminating such a
contradiction of lessons.
The teachers at this school are reported to have placed their own minor punishments on infractions to the code of conduct instead of allowing the administration to impose a punishment as high as suspension on students. If the teachers themselves are willing to be so
lenient, it must say something about their own attitude toward the manner in
which they are forced to teach. The teachers as well as the students have lost
confidence in the ability of standardized tests, such as state exams or
educational testing services (collegeboard) exams, to actually promote
education in a manner that encourages imagination and creativity.
Not that I propose that all
students disregard all morals and inhibitions and do whatever it takes to
succeed, but I do not believe that a society and education system that places
such an emphasize on exams and numbers, which in my opinion are of no
indication of any sort of intelligence, has the right to promote such an
acerbic atmosphere while simultaneously punishing the ramifications of this
atmosphere. I believe that the only manner in which to alter this society where
cheating is justified is to change the manner in which education is actually
provided for students. Although this is an extremely large task, the first step
may be to rid the system of standardized tests. The elimination of unnecessary
testing would allow teachers to focus on a more holistic education that
encompasses imagination.
ReplyDeleteYour post was very interesting. It's sad that schools with such prestige can also have cheating problems.
I would agree with your statement that schools put too much emphasis on test scores and numbers. It is unfair to judge someone solely based on their ability to memorize facts and bubble in answers. If there are review sheets, some people will do better than others simply because their brains have the ability to retain information quicker.
With that said, I don't think that standardized tests and exams are completely useless. There is a general trend between high performance in a class and a high grade on an exam. Although there are exceptions, tests can be good indicators of ability.
I believe, therefore, that there should be other graded aspects in a class besides just exams. Perhaps a paper or two that demonstrate a student's knowledge of abstract concepts would be useful. These could also show how a student applies these ideas in a real world setting.
And for people that don't do well with papers either, there could be other ways to succeed. There could be projects like in our polisci class the allow for creative expression while demonstrating knowledge of certain concepts. There could also be points for active particpation in the classroom, showing that a person genuinely is learning while sitting in the classroom.
I think that if there were more of these things added to a class's grading scale, cheating would be less prevalent. People would be more focused on learning concepts to understand what's going on in class than to know what bubble needed to be filled in on a test.
Your post really spoke to me, because I too, went to a high school like this one in Chicago (Northside College Prep, ranked #1 high school in Illinois). I found that the atmosphere was quite like you described, because kids tested to get into the high school, and so were already programmed to think of test scores and grades as being second to none in life, and the pressure to get into an ivy-level college was paramount. My sophomore year, there was a huge cheating scandal in which probably a fourth of my grade was suspended for having photocopies of a chemistry semester final. I really like how you related this to Menand, because it really does prove that his second theory of higher education, for which he declared his support, is not implemented at most schools, due to the pressure to succeed. If there was less pressure to get straight A’s and high scores on standardized tests, cheating scandals would be much less likely to occur, and more intrinsically motivated learning would be done. When I was younger, I always thought that the schools in Chicago like the Waldorf or Montessori schools – which didn’t have grades – were weird and a horrible idea thought up by some hippie. Now, I understand the mentality behind shielding kids and adolescents from the harsh environments of cutthroat academia, in which getting an A is an end that justifies almost any means.
ReplyDeleteThis example also reminds me of Walzer and the problem of dirty hands, because in this case, the ends justify the means in the eyes of the students, and the dirty hands would represent cheating and other dishonest ways of improving one’s grades or test scores, which students (clearly) see as acceptable, because the ends of success justify the means of dishonesty. However, for many students it seems, the dirty hands model would not even apply to them, because in order to have dirty hands, you must see what you are doing as being wrong, which many students do not when it comes to cheating. This is most likely because they have been exposed to cheating in school for so long that they have rationalized it in their minds and thus become desensitized to its moral implications. Therefore, probably about half of students involved in cheating have dirty hands in this scenario.
In regards to addressing this issue in academia, I’m not sure what kind of solution I would advocate, because while grades and test scores can seem like an inaccurate representation of a person’s intelligence, grades are the most broad and longitudinal way to look at a person’s work ethic and intelligence, and test scores are a way to verify a person’s intelligence in a standardized way, because some schools are easier than others. For these reasons, I understand the need for grades and test scores, but I think environments could be made less toxic and competitive to promote a positive attitude for students, and motivate them to work hard for themselves, and not to simply compete with their peers.
In another one of my classes we are talking about something very similar. In the class we defined the style of teaching you explained as a "factory model" of teaching. If you think about it that's exactly what it is. Students go from one class to another getting information from a teacher who specializes in a certain subject and then move to the next room. It's very similar to an assembly line. There has to be some better and more interesting way of teaching America's youth than this. As we discussed when we talked about the "Village Politics" maybe small changes to the current structure would be best as we shift toward a new form of education and hopefully away from standardized test.
ReplyDeleteI think this post relates perfectly to Menand's theories of education. Clearly in this situation, the children are not at all developing their academic mind and are simply acting in order to better their chances at a successful life.
ReplyDeleteI believe this is the exact problem that the education system in America is heading towards. With college admittance becoming increasingly competitive, it is only a matter of time until stories like this become more and more apparent. Furthermore, today's weak economy encourages a college degree from a respectable university. Unfortunately, this growing competition will almost completely make a college degree necessary for a decent job. The educational growth of the rest of the world also has steered the United State's schooling system to become far more competitive. Children in the US have steadily declined in rankings among the other countries of the world. Because of this, a college degree for Americans has become much more needed.
I honestly do not blame the student in the story for what he did. Sure, he clearly cheated, but I am not arguing that cheating is acceptable. However, I can understand why he acted in such a way. With so much pressure on him and his classmates, it perhaps was not entirely their fault. i know that this is a bad excuse but look at it from their point of view. Their parents probably sacrificed a lot to get them to this school. They have been working hard their whole life and their future is decided by a few tests. out of desperation and fear, they cheated. It is true that all students face this, however, and therefore it does give them a complete unfair advantage. All i am trying to say is that I completely understand where these students are coming from. What they did was not justifiable since it only benefited themselves. They acted this way in order to achieve self-preservation.
Very interesting post!
ReplyDeleteI attended a similar high school, much less elite, but it maintained the same focus on numeric success, as shown through good grades, than through actually learning, which I find to be extremely lame. Our society has developed to the point where beating somebody by getting a higher grade and getting into a better school has become more important that actually learning and developing one's intellect. I attribute this negative shift in academic focus to the ever increasing focus on economic success: people simply aspire to be rich rather than being smart. This has corrupted academia and has twisted it into such a system where students are desperate enough to risk their whole academic career to cheat. It is truly sad.
This really demonstrates a focus on Menand's fist theory, that of college as a sorting mechanism, over the second theory, that of college as a intellectual powerhouse. This is honestly a scary thought. As society progresses and the number of college applications to the top tier schools continue to increase, who knows what high school students will do to snag a spot in the upcoming class? Who knows what society will come to?
Ben