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Taking Education For Granted.
Taking Education For Granted.
Comments
Submitted by jrose on January 10, 2007 - 9:41pm.
This article posted today on Maisonneuve actually made me cringe. It sheds very negative light both on Canadian students, and on journalistic integrity. While I know this specific case of a former journalism student named "Kate Jackson" doesn't mean all students are guilty of plagerism, it just makes me sad to know that some students really don't realize how fortunate they are just to have access to a post secondary education.
quote: In total, I wrote nearly a dozen fraudulent stories over two semesters, sticking to soft news and human-interest pieces. I often drew upon my social life for inspiration, “covering” local events I attended and imaginatively filling in the blanks instead of doing actual background research. My stories were pithy and concise, just like we’d been taught, earning me the straight-A average required to stay in the program. Each time a fake story was handed back to me with praise, I was both pleased and stunned that I had gotten away with it again. I guess it would have been impossible for one professor to fact-check almost one hundred student stories every week; we were, it seems, working on the honour system.
[ 10 January 2007: Message edited by: jrose ]
Submitted by Le T on January 21, 2007 - 2:56pm.
I think the story sheds light on the fact that post-secondary education in Canada sucks. And also that as tuition fees rise the best students are replaced with the richest students. I'm in my 5th year of undergrad and I have watched my school fall to pieces, my fees rise by $1000, the student population double in 4 years (the number of faculty stayed the same) and more "stupid rich kids" flood in who are more interested in coke parties and plagiarism than getting anything out of their education.
University is not what it used to be and gets worse every year. The system is in serious trouble.
Submitted by Fidel on January 21, 2007 - 6:47pm.
I think our puppets have come full circle and adopted American-style neo-conservative policies for class warfare.
Submitted by jrose on January 22, 2007 - 9:31pm.
quote:more "stupid rich kids" flood in who are more interested in coke parties and plagiarism than getting anything out of their education.
This certainly makes it more difficult for well-meaning, hard-working, passionate students to get ahead, but really, if this sort of class division does exist what can be done about it? How can our universities improve, and insure people of all income brackets recieve a positive education?
Submitted by scooter on January 23, 2007 - 6:19pm.
quote:Originally posted by jrose:
...it just makes me sad to know that some students really don't realize how fortunate they are just to have access to a post secondary education....
Why in my day we had to walk ten miles through five feet of snow fighting bears to get to school.
Submitted by Michelle on January 23, 2007 - 6:34pm.
quote:Originally posted by Le Tйlйspectateur:
I think the story sheds light on the fact that post-secondary education in Canada sucks.
Do you think? I'm not sure what they could have done to stop this. I mean, she told outright, boldfaced lies in her articles, and gave false sources which they couldn't have checked up since it was face-to-face. How could the professor have made sure she made it into the locker room and overheard conversations? How could the professor have made sure she actually talked to a couple at the airport? How many TAs would a prof need to be able to check up on every single source cited in every single story? One for every four or five students?
At some point, you have to trust that someone isn't completely and totally lying to you.
Submitted by Le T on January 23, 2007 - 7:12pm.
True Michelle, but she does mention in the story that she was submitting her work in a class of 100 students. A 1 to 100 teacher student ratio usually means that papers are marked by over-worked TAs. A class of 100 also offers very little in the way of a teacher-student relationship.
Prof doesn't know you, your papers are marked by professional markers (aka grad students with very little time); this is the norm in most universities and contributes to sever student apathy.
If your work doesn't matter to anyone else why should it matter to you?
Submitted by Le T on January 23, 2007 - 7:30pm.
quote: This certainly makes it more difficult for well-meaning, hard-working, passionate students to get ahead, but really, if this sort of class division does exist what can be done about it? How can our universities improve, and insure people of all income brackets receive a positive education?
Yes it does make it hard.
Universities have always thrived on class division. The academy is a gated community.
Even if the serious barrier of $6000/year tuition is eliminated there are other barriers to university entrance for many people.
I would also like take back my "stupid rich kids" remark. Lots of those students don't really want to be at school and it is their class/parents that force them to go.
I think university is just one path of many and it is not for everybody. There are people that should be there and will never get the chance and there are people that shouldn't be there but have no other option.
At the end of the day, youth of all stripes are forced into a system that is not their making.
Submitted by Fidel on January 24, 2007 - 11:09pm.
What the two old line parties have done to post-secondary access in Canada is a clear violation of a human rights declaration this country signed on to several decades ago. Other countries, and with a dearth of natural resource wealth by comparison, have actually closed the gap toward achieving equal access to post-secondary since becoming signatory nations to the Charter. Of course we're going to get slanted journalism as presented by a narrow cross section of Canadians who've been able to afford unprecedented post-secondary costs and willingness to accept oppressive debt loads, or simply to have paid cash on the barrelhead.
Submitted by NorthReport on April 24, 2014 - 2:14pm.
Doesn't the left have enough problems as it is without adding to the mix?
Shame on Slate.
It’s not just wing-nuts! Slate gets liberal opposition to the Common Core all wrong
Slate oversimplifies Common Core debate as Obama vs. the Tea Party, and misses serious, sophisticated left critique
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/24/its_not_just_wing_nuts_slate_gets_libera...
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