Job Discussion Forums

[go with the flow]

There seems to be a lot of discussion of cheating and how to stop it on the China site. My question - why would you want to stop Chinese students from cheating?
If it is because of some religious or moral notion that cheating is bad, perhaps you need to consider that this is a western attitude. Obviously, to many Chinese, perhaps all, cheating is not bad; it is a way of achieving some goal. Perhaps by convincing a student not to cheat, you are robbing him/her of a necessary survival tool in Chinese culture.
If the student is to publish in a western publication or attend a western university, then he/she should be warned of the western consequences of plagiarism and cheating.
If he/she is going to be a western politician, businessman, athlete, or evangelical preacher, then cheating (and the attendent hypocrisy) is a necessary life skill.
Those who are trying to make it impossible for students to cheat are bucking an ingrained element of a culture that has survived more or less successfully for quite a long time.
I would suggest adapting to the Chinese and not get in a snit about cheating. "When in Rome..." is still good advice.

[nolefan]

I'm guessing you're not in China and thus cannot understand the amplitude of the problem. We're talking blatant, in your face, opening the book and trying to find answers in it. I've seen cases last year where the student just reached over and grabbed her classmate's paper to copy the answers.

I was a student a few years back and I did my share of "helping others" or "getting help" by never in these ways. we found new ways and we knew the risks.

over here, they get upset if you catch them in the act and look at you with that "how dare you...?" expression on their face

[go with the flow]

Actually, I am in China. And I heard stories before giving my first tests describing the situations you describe. But to be honest, I did not notice (and I was watching) blatant cheating on that scale. I did find, and stop, a couple of students who were trying to cheat (force of habit after teaching in the west).
I have also heard stories of students' marks being changed with the payment of a "fee"; so, if that is the case, trying to stop the cheating is a waste of righteous energy anyway.

[Sinobear]

Go with the flow: would you like to have major surgery performed on you by a surgeon who cheated his/her way through med school? Would you like to fly across China in a plane piloted by two cheats? How about wiring being done in your 900K RMB new apartment by a man/woman who cheated their way through his/her engineering degree?

Cheers!

[william wallace]

[william wallace]

[Old Dog]

I am largely unmoved by the moral outrage that bellows forth when the question of cheating in Chinese schools/colleges is raised. Where it exists, it's a cultural thing and there's not a thing that can be done about it by a westerner. All the fire and brimstone that it evokes from westerners seems to me to be about as useful as Canute's folly.

The situation seems to me to be as follows:

a. High class schools/colleges are quite strict in the matter of preventing cheating. It's true here in these schools and it's true in the top-level universities.
b. The lower one goes down the "prestige" scale, the more it is that cheating is part of the ethos of such organizations. It is how they survive and how they achieve their social/educational purpose. "Education" is not their purpose. Rather it is "credentialling" - and a tertiary credential for their off-spring is one of the great motivations of Chinese parents. Its actual worth in the education chain of being is not a matter of concern to them.

Were I in a top organization and I observed cheating, I'd join my Chinese colleagues and be outraged. If I were in a low-class organization and observed cheating, I'd not give a performance of western moral superiority to Chinese colleagues who'd be truly mystified by my performance. They'd suspect I simply didn't understand the role of the organization within the Chinese social/educational structure.

If I were in a top organization, I'd "see" cheating. If I were in a low-class organization, I'd be sure to see no evil.

As for the cheating pilot, engineer, doctor - well, yes, I do worry just a bit - but there's not a thing I can do about it. If the Chinese become sufficiently worried, they'll do something - but until then .....

[burnsie]

Well said Old Dog. I totally agree with the 'level' situation and it only comes from observation that where you stand in the scheme of things.

I for one have worked in the 'creditallating' environment and no ranting and waving will change the system.

Thanks for the comment Old Dog. We all really need to search within yourself to determine if you are the 'see no evil' style person or you have to moral fibre that you cannot get used to the overall system you are involved in.

[go with the flow]

"Go with the flow: would you like to have major surgery performed on you by a surgeon who cheated his/her way through med school? Would you like to fly across China in a plane piloted by two cheats? How about wiring being done in your 900K RMB new apartment by a man/woman who cheated their way through his/her engineering degree?"

Of course not. But I wouldn't like to be flown by someone using drugs or alcohol either; and I have heard of that happening in Canada/US. I wouldn't like to be operated on by a quack who leaves things in the patient's body; but I've heard that happens too. My wife loves to tell the story of the university psychologist who taught and praticed for years; and then the real doctor saw his credentials and name in the university calender and someone checked the fake out and he wasn't the person he was supposed to be. He had no degree, no license, but had had many satisfied patients during the years he wasn't caught.
As for the electrician, I use my son-in-law.
The point is as someone else has pointed out in another posting, things won't change because of me or any other westerner; we're told we don't know the culture, and in my case after only 6 months here, they're right. I am learning about it, but I'm not here to change it.

[go with the flow]

While I can appreciate brevity, William Wallace carries it a little too far!

[kev7161]

My goodness, I would never be so bold as to say I'm trying to change CHINA and their "way of doing things". But, as a professional teacher, it doesn't sit right with me to allow a student or ten to cheat IN MY CLASS, right under my nose. If I give an out-of-class assignment and they decide to copy from each other (workbook assignments, usually), well - - so be it. The grade they receive from me for tests may not mean too much (if anything at all), but it means something to me.

But to sit there and blatently cheat on a test or an in class assignment - - not in my classroom, thanks. I even consider whispering something to another student when I ask a question as cheating. "Student A, what city do you call home?" (Student A: blank look - - Student B: [whispering] "Hangzhou." Student A: "Hangzhou").

[joe greene]

Tolerance also varies among the different exams according to the perceived prestige or importance of the exam. At the high end, the national college entrance examination is purportedly the most difficult to cheat on. In the middle are the standardized certifications for each academic major. At the low end are course exams. At the low, low end is 口语.

Once, I was asked to proctor/invigilate a CET-4 exam. My Chinese colleague advised me to 'keep one eye open, and one eye closed.'

[Roger]

Well, I find it total nonsense when people legitimise bad habits in the name of PC. Cheating is NOT an accepted way of life, neither in the West nor in China; most Chinese believe evferybody is "honest" and they just ignore what's going on around them. It certainly has NOTHING whatsoever to do with SURVIVAL SKILLS; it is always cheating at the expense of the rest of their own society - that's why the elite here are such a posse of rotten eggs. Those who cannot bribe or cheat get eliminated; the tragedy is that people with money - however they have got it in the first place - are calling the shots, apply for study visas abroad and worm their way back to China as credentialled and foreign-passport holding Chinese.

LEt me refute the claim the CHinese don't think cheating is "bad": I once saw my afternoon lesson cancelled because the normal school I was teaching at demanded that all students attend a meeting. I was surprised but understood very quickly: it was found that most students had been discovered to continuously have cheated throughout all exams over the last few months. Who lost "face"? The school administration, of course. There was genuine concern for the school's reputation - because that normal school was entering into a cooperative agreement with an Australian college/and/university.

[go with the flow]

"Cheating is NOT an accepted way of life, neither in the West nor in China"

Let me just say this about that - Enron (if you're American), Sponsorship (if you're Canadian), Roy Carroll (if you're a soccer fan), and income taxes (c'mon, everybody knows someone who has cheated on their taxes).

It's not the cheating that causes embarassment (often the culprits will brag to their friends about what they've done), it's the getting caught (and sometimes not even then!). Most corporations, Liberal parties, athletes, and taxpayers will keep at it until they get caught. Then they'll whine and cry and promise never to do it again. And some people might even believe them.

The Chinese who were the objects of the complaints about which I originally wrote just seem to be more honest.

[Brian Caulfield]

If you want to have some fun try juxtaposing your questions and putting out five versions of the same exam . Hands come flying up Laosi meyou and they point to other students exams . My advice that I recieved from many experienced teachers in KOrea is to keep everything simple . Don't make difficult exams . No one cares and no one looks at them anyway . Let them cheat but in a way they may learn something . Put the answers to question 1 in question twenty .
An analogy is theft in capatilistic consumer societies . If there is no theft then people don't really want the goods . If students don't cheat then they don't really care about passing .
I was told in Korea that it is looked as an art form that was cultivated during the Japanese occupation. People who tried to cheat the Japanese were revered and idolized.
English is an art not a science . You have nothing to do with medicine or avionics .