college board: it’s the procedure, stupid!

“We just need you to hold our hands,” they said.  “We’ve never done anything like this before – an audit, submitting our syllabi online.  We want you there to make sure there aren’t any mistakes.”

So plead our two AP World Languages teachers.  College Board (proud creators of the SAT) conducts periodic audits of schools to ensure their AP courses meet standards for college credit.  This year it’s our turn, and some of our teachers are jittery.

In the World Languages office I sit with Señora Español, who shows me a College Board letter with directions for online syllabus submission.  Frankly it’s intimidating: secure website, lengthy requirements for file preparation, warnings that syllabi once submitted may not be retracted.  No wonder these teachers want my help.

plagiarism: the harvard way?

Although Harvard’s name is synonymous with academia, in recent years it is becoming equated with an endeavor far less reputable: plagiarism.

This might be due to an aggressive anti-plagiarism campaign that catches professors and students in acts that would go undetected at other universities. If so, the Harvard community should be commended.

Still, it’s unnerving to hear so many cases of plagiarism at Harvard (for awhile there was even a blog, Harvard Plagiarism Archive, tracking them). Shouldn’t we expect more of the professors and students at America’s top university? Is intellectual integrity really that scarce?

CNN: Harvard student paper suspends two for plagiarism

Harvard University’s student newspaper, which this spring broke a plagiarism story that prompted a U.S. publisher to pull a best-seller off the shelves, suspended two staffers in the past week for plagiarism.

english on testosterone

Ooh, I've got a dirty secret to tell.

In my first year of teaching, an unruly student called me a faggot in the middle of class. He just yelled it out, right in front of everyone: "You're such a faggot!" Apparently no man can love literature and also be straight.

That's not the dirty secret.

When I was a National Honor Society advisor, I presided over induction ceremonies where more than two thirds of the new members were girls. Where were the boys? Was this discrimination? No. The simple truth was that fewer boys met NHS qualifications than girls.

That's not the dirty secret either. It does, however, lead into this still-not-the-dirty-secret-but-getting-closer article about gender and academic performance:

CNN: Study: Academic gains for women, stagnation for men

Women now earn the majority of diplomas in fields men used to dominate — from biology to business — and have caught up in pursuit of law, medicine and other advanced degrees.

plagiarism has its price

Update on there's always another plagiarist: Kaavya Viswanathan has lost her book deal. Her current book, already being pulled off the shelves, will not be republished. Further, her newspaper articles are being investigated for plagiarism:

CNN: Harvard author faces further allegations of borrowing

A Harvard University student's "chick lit" novel has been permanently withdrawn and her two-book deal canceled, publisher Little, Brown and Co. announced Tuesday, as allegations of literary borrowing proliferated against Kaavya Viswanathan's "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life."

"Little, Brown and Company will not be publishing a revised edition of 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life' by Kaavya Viswanathan, nor will we publish the second book under contract," Michael Pietsch, Little Brown's senior vice president and publisher, said in a statement.

there’s always another plagiarist

Yet another plagiarism scandal has hit the news — this time over young adult fiction. In the tradition of should i thank these people?, I would like to express my professional appreciation to Kaavya Viswanathan for serving as a real-world example for my high school students:

Rediff.com: Kaavya Viswanathan takes a break from Harvard

Harvard University does not know how to deal with its student Kaavya Viswanathan just yet.

Viswanathan, who was born in Chennai and raised in Scotland before her parents migrated to America, is the most scrutinised author and student in the US following her admission that she had 'internalized' some passages for her novel from two-bestselling novels she read when she was in high school.

learning priced out

This morning The Washington Post ran an article (”Swelling textbook costs have college students saying ‘pass’”) reporting that college students are declining to purchase required textbooks due to their cost. This sheds some light on the low academic skills of today’s college students, reported 22 Jan 06:

below average

B.A. has a new meaning — “below average” — according to a recent survey demonstrating that colleges pay far more attention to their business models than to their students’ academic achievements:

the value of street smarts

Although the liberal intelligentsia would send us all to college (ultimately for lifelong learning), actual real-world cases reveal that classroom education has its limits:

the gears keep grinding

On 18 Oct 05, seedlings highlighted a case of high school seniors denied diplomas because of computer errors scoring their exit exams. Think that was extreme? Barely three months later another case hits the headlines, this time affecting 347 students:

insults 101 canceled

Bravo to University of Kansas for maintaining academic standards, rather than jumping on the mock-a-creationist bandwagon:

english airs

If Alan Sokal’s grand hoax of 1996 actually did manage to undermine the status of literary theory on college campuses, alas! — it happened three years too late for me. This is exactly why I decided pursuing a PhD in my major would be a complete waste of life:

Slate: The death of literary theory

The article dishes up an excellent analysis of how university English departments became trite, irrelevant, and intellectually self-indulgent. Interestingly, the author finds some virtue in those qualities, but along the way he writes one of the truest statements about academia I have ever read:

By never firmly establishing what it itself was for, the English department cultivated habits of withering self-reflection …

turn off the boob tube

Finally, some definitive studies: “children and adolescents who watched more television had less educational attainment regardless of their intelligence, socioeconomic status or childhood behavioral problems.�?

Reuters: TV is bad for children’s education, studies say

This should give the TV-Turnoff Week initiative some teeth.

teen angst justified

Yet another study showing that 7:25 am classes are too early for teenage physiology:

LA Times: Too early for teens

Will public school systems act on this growing body of research? No — proving all the more that public schools are less about nurturing students, and more about cost-effective childcare and political boasting.

a better excuse for why you forgot

Forgetful? You may actually be too smart for your brain’s good:

Science Daily: Too much knowledge can be bad for some types of memory, study finds

This study has intriguing insights into our ability to categorize — a sign of higher intelligence that nevertheless leads to fewer observations and greater stereotyping.

… and this, children, is freedom

It seems odd that a law violating the spirit of Constitutional freedom should require students to be taught about their Constitutional freedoms:

CNN: For one day, schools must teach the same topic

As the article points out, what’s next?