Thursday, August 5, 2010

Dishonor Awards: a national society expands accessibility

Three juniors in a local high school were found to have downloaded substantial parts of papers for two different classes and submitted them without citation. When the teachers brought this to the attention of the academic dean, she punished them by giving them detentions, which they accepted without protest. The matter was then dropped. One of the three students was her daughter.

The sponsor of the school chapter of the National High School Honor Society removed the plagiarists' names from the list of nominees for induction. Their parents complained and hired a lawyer who informed the School Board that the criteria for plagiarism were so vague as to make them vulnerable to lawsuit. Exhibiting the courage of capon, steer or gelding the Board caved in and directed the sponsor to submit the students' names for induction.

Those of us who in our own time were inducted into the National High School Honor Society can no doubt be proud that we now belong to the National High School Plagiarism Society.

To examine these issues further, see Conjecture Pollution: Poisoning Educational Practice


Cordially

--- EGR

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