quote:Unlike a judge, the disciplinary committee likely has a lot of leeway with regard to how it treats offenders.
Even in this day of more frequent mandatory minimum sentences, judges have enormous leeway with regard to how they treat offenders.
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I don't think the question here is that the girl was disciplined, but that she was so brutally threatened with discipline.
It seems reasonable that her local school would remind her that she was still in high school and that her position at the college of her choice was not etched in stone. Any infractions or discplinary action could result in the College Admissions Committee changing their mind.
This is really standard practice in high school. Kids get accepted to a college and they think they can run wild and nothing can happen to them. The school needs to remind them that they are NOT in college yet and their actions can still affect their chances.
But in this case, the high school didn't seem to do this. Their actions just seem pointlessly cruel and insensitive, and as I said before, the 'your not University X material' was absolutely uncalled for.
posted
I've never worked at any school where the penalty for cheating was failing a course. Several people here have said that is standard; I just want to point out that it doesn't seem to be.
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I still don't understand why this young woman felt that the other person needed her 2 hours credit (if she did think that, that is). Why didn't the other person just do the 2 hours, like, the next day?
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I've never worked at any school where the penalty for cheating was failing a course. Several people here have said that is standard; I just want to point out that it doesn't seem to be.
Admittedly, I only have experience with one high school and first hand knowledge of a couple others, but all of them explicitly explain you can fail a course for cheating. They also explain that you are eligible for suspension or expulsion for cheating, at their discretion.
It's never heard of it being enforced to that extent, but the penalty is definitely in the books.
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quote:I've never worked at any school where the penalty for cheating was failing a course. Several people here have said that is standard; I just want to point out that it doesn't seem to be.
It should be standard everywhere. There is no reason I can think of where it's a good idea to let someone cheat in a course and still give them a passing grade. I don't doubt you Icarus, not at all, I'm certain you're right. I will have a hard time dealing with that when I teach - having been out of high school for so long and used to the university environment where it's not a question of whether or not you fail the course but whether or not getting caught cheating gets you expelled - failing the course is a given.
Edit to add: Out of curiosity, I looked at what my kids school system says - in the official Code of Student Conduct, it lists cheating/dishonesty as a Class 2 violation, which means the principal uses his/her discretion, parents must be notified, and sanctions allowed include but are not limited to the following:
1) Temporary removal from class 2) Detention 3) In-school suspension 4) Alternative Education Program 5) Out of school suspension 6) Referral to outside agency, including the criminal justice system 7) Corporal punishment (this is still on the books in our school system, but as far as I understand - isn't used) 8) Saturday school (grades 5-12 only) 9) School bus suspension (more than 10 days) 10) Restitution of property and damages where appropriate 11) Other sanctions approved by the Board of education.
If you're curious what else are Class 2 Violations, it includes stuff such as vandalism/property damage, trespassing/illegal school entry, gambling, and theft of property. The highest level offenses are Class 4 - which are all weapons-related and/or drug crimes. Class 3 are things like fighting, tobacco possession, indecent exposure and unjustified activation of a fire alarm.
Nothing is mentioned about academic consequences - this is the disciplinary code of conduct. I'll have to ask my oldest daughter if the individual teachers' have policies or what.
[ January 16, 2007, 12:44 AM: Message edited by: Belle ]
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I don't know that cheating is as cut and dried in the university setting as you make it out to be. There are a lot of shades of grey, with group projects and the like. Is it cheating for a group to keep a homework archive of what the same professor has assigned before. Particularly when you know he recycles homework problems?
Some professors say you aren't allowed to use those documents. I have a hard time with that. Obviously you shouldn't just straight copy them, but why shouldn't you be allowed to share notes with someone else, or review past homework assignments from a previous class?
quote:[the penalty for cheating was failing a course] should be standard everywhere. There is no reason I can think of where it's a good idea to let someone cheat in a course and still give them a passing grade.
To me, this seems very harsh. The three high-schools that I attended and am familiar with would fail you for the assignment you were working on if you were caught cheating, and fail you for the class if you were caught a second time (as well as detention or sat. school or something, I don't remember).
In the case under discussion, were I the student in question, I would expect to fail the assignment regarding the community service. As I understand it this would mean failing the entire course, and I'm sure I would hope and probably beg for a make up assignment, assumedly much more difficult than the original. I just can't see failing a student who has (assumedly) worked very hard and studied for an entire semester because they cheated once. And threatening to destroy a students dream of going to a particular college just sounds heartless and mean.
As for the rude comment made by one of the teachers; that teacher should be repremanded, IMO. I had a teacher, who's class I was acing at the time, tell me that it would be a waste of money for my parents to send me to college. It may have had something to do with me calling her "Nancy Pantsy" repeatedly, but then, who knows? ::shrug::
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: Is it cheating for a group to keep a homework archive of what the same professor has assigned before. Particularly when you know he recycles homework problems?
Some professors say you aren't allowed to use those documents. I have a hard time with that. Obviously you shouldn't just straight copy them, but why shouldn't you be allowed to share notes with someone else, or review past homework assignments from a previous class?
If the instructor considers it cheating, then why on earth would you think it is ok?
What if the teacher re-used an old final (ignoring the stupidity on the instructor's part for a moment)? Now, what if the instructor reused an old final, and the department has a policy that students are not supposed to get their finals back, just the grade (that's the policy at UCLA's math department, for instance), but somehow you got a copy of last year's final?
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I've never worked at any school where the penalty for cheating was failing a course. Several people here have said that is standard; I just want to point out that it doesn't seem to be.
I went to school where that was the standard penalty.
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quote:If the instructor considers it cheating, then why on earth would you think it is ok?
Exactly.
The professors make the rules. If you break them, you are a cheater. Period. There is no gray in that.
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quote: I've never worked at any school where the penalty for cheating was failing a course. Several people here have said that is standard; I just want to point out that it doesn't seem to be.
Clarification: I said failing the requirement would be standard; by that I meant the "30 hour" assignment, not the whole course. Sorry that wasn't clear, thus the clarification.
At the schools where I've worked, failing the ASSIGNMENT is the first-level penalty, but it's often left to teacher discretion, so I can choose to be merciful.
I don't.
That said, my decisions in that regard don't affect anyone's college career...but if it did, I might think, You're 18! Shouldn't you know better by now?? I don't know, though.
As for the university situation: yeah, I think it is that cut and dried. If the professor says it's cheating, then it is. I worked at a writing center as a tutor, and there were 2 or 3 professors whose students we weren't allowed to help. Even though the assistance I gave was VERY far from writing a paper for a student, I still respect those professors' assessment decisions--they wanted to know what the students were capable of on their own.
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Actually, I was referring to Universities as well, since I also taught at Clemson. When I busted a student for plagiarism, she got a zero on the assignment and a sealed note in her record. A second offense, I believe, would have resulted in expulsion. In theory.
Around here, the standard is a zero on the assignment for the first offense. There are slightly harsher penalties for further offenses--but only if they are in the same class! In other words, you can cheat once per class without getting suspended or expelled. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: Is it cheating for a group to keep a homework archive of what the same professor has assigned before. Particularly when you know he recycles homework problems?
Yes. Particularly since, in my experience, not every student has access to this sort of resource. At my college, the fraternities and sororities kept archives. So if you went Greek, you had access to past assignments and tests. If you didn't, you didn't. I don't know if maybe the professional associations in the various disciplines kept them too, I wasn't a member of one. But no one ever mentioned it if they did, and I heard about them from my friends in the Greek system many times.
I don't see why reviewing the homework of someone who took the class a year ago is any less cheating than reviewing the homework of someone who's in the class with you. More, in fact, because it's already been graded and you know if they got the question right. But even if you're not copying and are just "reviewing," if it's a resource that isn't available to all students it's not fair to use it.
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quote: Class 3 are things like fighting, tobacco possession, indecent exposure and unjustified activation of a fire alarm.
I can not believe that possesing tobacco, which is incidentally legal for 18 y.o kids, is on the same level as indecent exposure.
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For universities, I guess it just depends. Where I went, it was a quick trip to the honor court and then expulsion. Ding! Thanks for playing!
I live in Virginia, where UVA's honor code is...notorious? famous? Anyway, some graduates actually got their diplomas revoked when it was proved after their graduation that they had cheated on a test. Since a lot of my kids want to go there, I definitely include UVA's policy in my "plagiarism is stealing and even though nothing really bad happens to you here someday it will" talk.
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All other issues aside, if you are willing to ruin a kid's dream in order to teach them a rather small lesson about cheating, I doubt you actually have their best interests in mind.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: All other issues aside, if you are willing to ruin a kid's dream in order to teach them a rather small lesson about cheating, I doubt you actually have their best interests in mind.
I regard ruining their dream in order to show them how the real world functions a far more valuable life experience than getting into ANY college could ever be.
YMMV, I guess.
Also, if it's "ruining a kid's dream," it's sort of impossible for the lesson to be small.
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I think that's rather hyperbolic language, and I find the attitude expressed myopic and immature.
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You know, it's not the teacher / principal / administrator who ruined the kid's dream - it was the kid who ruined his/her own dream. Put the blame where it belongs.
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Expecting a student to deal with the natural consequences of their actions is certainly not a small lesson. And sadly, too many adults have never learned it.
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AJ, I think the professor has the ability to set their own rules and you should follow them. For example, one prof said he knows there are copies of his tests floating around and said studying them is a great idea - it will help you in the course. His opinion was that if a prof is lazy enough to keep using the same test he deserves whe he gets. This guy uses a different test every semester so studying the former test is more akin to studying notes. Other professors might not want that to happen. I think you use your discretion - if a prof says it's okay, it's okay. If he doesn't, and it seems a gray area to you the best thing to do is assume it isn't gray but black and don't do it. That's the safest way to go.
As for group assignment, funny you should mention them. Just finished one. Five people in the group, I was the coordinator and only three of my group members contacted me and contributed. I called the professor, told her the other person had not responded, she gave me contact information, I called and emailed her, nothing. So the professor told me to email her by noon on Monday and if the person hadn't contacted me she would receive a zero for the assignment and we would not be penalized for having only 4/5 of the assignment done. That's what happened.
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In my department, the policy is, if you catch them once, they fail the assignment/quiz/exam. If you catch them twice, they fail the course. I like that because it conveys the absolute seriousness of the infraction without being overly harsh the first time.
ElJay, the situation with the fraternities and sororities would be problematic for me, because it definitely seems like cheating to me. On the other hand, I'm not sure that it would be possible or right to dictate to students what they could do with their graded assignments after they'd gotten them back. This is why I try to change up my quizzes and exams whenever I teach a class more than once. As far as homeworks go, my homework assignments are not heavily weighted enough to concern me...since the student's real lack of progress will be apparent when they take the exams and quizzes.
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quote:A rather small lesson? I cannot agree with that.
Perhaps small is not the right word. But I doubt this is the first time this student has come across cheating. My suspicion is that they have already had many lessons about it, through their own actions or the actions of others, and have probably already formed opinions on it. For that reason, I have doubts that teaching them a severe lesson in this one instance is going to radically change them - not moreso than a more moderate punishment would. I don't think the severity will make it stick.
In fact, my guess is that if school prevented the student from going to the student's dream college over this, chances are the lesson taken home would not be the one intended.
quote:You know, it's not the teacher / principal / administrator who ruined the kid's dream - it was the kid who ruined his/her own dream. Put the blame where it belongs.
If we gave the kid the death penalty for the act of cheating, would it also be the kid who killed himself/herself, or would it be the adults who decided upon the needlessly harsh punishment?
I'd say blame for any bad outcome always belongs on anyone who made choices that could have led to a better outcome had they chosen otherwise.
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quote:In fact, my guess is that if school prevented the student from going to the student's dream college over this
It should be noted that the school would not be denying the student access to the college; the college were.
The school would only be informing the college of what happened.
quote:If we gave the kid the death penalty for the act of cheating, would it also be the kid who killed himself/herself, or would it be the adults who decided upon the needlessly harsh punishment?
Yes, but we're not talking about the death penalty. We're talking about a well-known consequence of cheating, one that is proper and proportionate to the infraction.
There was no way that the kid didn't know this was wrong. There's no way the kid didn't know that, if caught, it could threaten her college career. Had she chosen otherwise, the bad outcome wouldn't have occurred.
quote:I'd say blame for any bad outcome always belongs on anyone who made choices that could have led to a better outcome had they chosen otherwise.
This is incredibly over-simplistic. For one, you leave knowledge out. For example, if I unknowingly say the command word that puts a trained attack dog into attack mode, there's no blame for me there, even though I could have chosen to say another word. And that's just the most basic and easiest to point out problem with your rule.
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Tres, I'm unsure what is needlessly harsh about what has been done. The OP seems to be upset that his friend was "threatened to be expelled." Well, if the school handbook from my school district is any guide, that's not a pointless threat - according to that, expulsion is one of the penalties that can be assessed for cheating. I'm sure this school has a similar policy in writing.
In other words, yes, you can expel a kid for cheating but I seriously doubt it happens very often. And, the OP hasn't said this kid WAS expelled, just told about the possibility. That sounds to me like an administrator who thinks he has a pretty good kid on his hands, wants to let them know how serious their offense is, but doesn't really plan on following through with it.
The comment made by the teacher sounds harsh, and is probably pretty rude, but then again, I don't see where it has done any real harm except to upset the student, and honestly, I think she should be upset. She cheated. There should be consequences for that.
In my opinion, the kid should fail the course. Then, since that course it required for graduation, that means graduation may be delayed and the kid should have to finish the course in summer school or something before receiving her diploma. If that means she won't be able to attend the school she wants to, that's where the learning of a harsh lesson comes in. She can attend a junior college for the first year and re-apply to the university of her choice later. I think that's an appropriate punishment.
Now...I seem to be in the minority. Most people think she should only get a zero on the assignment. If that's what happens, I doubt there will be any real consequence. She sounds like the type of student that has a grade high enough that even a zero on that assignment won't cause her to fail the course. She's already accepted to the uni of her choice, so it doesn't look like she will suffer any real consequence at all. To me, that's a shame. She'll graduate having been taught that it's okay to cheat as long as you have good grades. If she leaves high school with that attitude, then I wouldn't want her to be a student in my alma mater. Maybe that's what the teacher who said the comment about her not being University X material meant. Can't say I disagree with the teacher overmuch, even though I probably personally would never say something like that.
The best outcome we can hope for is that she is scared silly by this, realizes that her actions have consequences and that bad judgment could have cost her her dream, and goes on to University X a more mature, and wiser student and applies herself diligently to her studies and never cheats again. The hope for that is the only reason I can get behind not failing her for the course.
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In all the group projects I did, we had a group grade assessment. So, if there were five members, there was 500% to work with, and all members of the group got to vote on who got what percentage. Before the project began, each group could set their own rules, ie don't show up for a meeting automatically means -10% for that person. So, at the end of the project, except for the one person who didn't show up for any meetings including that one, all remaining group members discussed and voted on percentages. Then they all signed the resulting document and handed it in with the project.
Made things a whole lot more fair that way and there weren't any surprises.
I can't imagine doing it any other way.
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quote:There's no way the kid didn't know that, if caught, it could threaten her college career.
Actually, I suspect it is highly likely the kid did not know it could in any way impact her college career, given the kid was obsessing about getting into a certain college. I'm not even sure it would have been clear to the kid that it was cheating, depending on how the rules of the service requirement worked. In any event, I suspect the punishment the kid would have expected would be a zero for the assignment, or being required to redo the service hours - both of which would have been reasonable punishments. Frankly, having known students who approach school and college in the way that it sounds like this student approaches it, they will probably take a zero on any assignment very seriously.
quote:Tres, I'm unsure what is needlessly harsh about what has been done. The OP seems to be upset that his friend was "threatened to be expelled." Well, if the school handbook from my school district is any guide, that's not a pointless threat - according to that, expulsion is one of the penalties that can be assessed for cheating. I'm sure this school has a similar policy in writing.
Well, threatening his friend is fine. There's nothing needlessly harsh about that. What I'm saying is that actually doing it to the student is a punishment that would far outweigh the crime in this case.
The exception to this being if there is some reason to think this is a pattern of behavior. It doesn't sound like there is.
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quote:Actually, I suspect it is highly likely the kid did not know it could in any way impact her college career, given the kid was obsessing about getting into a certain college. I'm not even sure it would have been clear to the kid that it was cheating, depending on how the rules of the service requirement worked. In any event, I suspect the punishment the kid would have expected would be a zero for the assignment, or being required to redo the service hours - both of which would have been reasonable punishments.
Zero on the assignment means she doesn't graduate on time - it's a requirement to pass a required course. If this kid is as bright as she's made out to be, she knew of this possibility.
The school likely made recommendations (either by teachers, dean certifications, or something similar). If I told school Y that person X was a suitable candidate, I would feel a duty to report anything school-related that called that opinion into question.
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quote:The school likely made recommendations (either by teachers, dean certifications, or something similar). If I told school Y that person X was a suitable candidate, I would feel a duty to report anything school-related that called that opinion into question.
Excellent point. Yes, I'd do the same. If competition to get accepted to this University is high, then allowing them to extend a position to a student who has questionable character, means that another student who may have the same grades, accomplishments, and impeccable character is denied a place. For that reason, I do agree the school should notify the university.
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What does this community service entail and why is it a requirement to graduate?
Why are we using children as slave labour for to further someone's agenda? They're not convicts.
A better lesson might be to require they get a job. Make them serve the public AND learn the value of a dollar which is a lesson lost on most adults these days.
Still, I wouldn't support that as a requirement to graduate. The whole idea of forced community service pisses me off greatly.
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If adults get much more stupid, they're going to revert back to apes. Apes, I tell you! *shakes fist*
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quote:What does this community service entail and why is it a requirement to graduate?
Why are we using children as slave labour for to further someone's agenda? They're not convicts.
It can be anything -- I did 90 hours or so at the local hospital, and had some carried over from middle school. A girl I knew earned several hundred hours from working with the Girl Scouts. Another kid earned hours by learning and teaching CPR. Most of the students volunteered with their friends at the local nursing homes and soup kicthens for a week or so.
Only 60 hours were needed to graduate, but you get at least 10 hours for each year in middle school (in-class activities and the like), so the requirement is effectively reduced to 30. It's not an extraordinary difficult requirement to meet.
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I don't care how difficult it is to meet. I do care that you're teaching kids the state can do anything with them they want and it's ok.
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quote:If this kid is as bright as she's made out to be, she knew of this possibility.
I would like to point out that it is possiple for an incredibly bright person to make a stupid mistake that they do not fully understand the consequences of. If none of you have done this, you are far better people than I.
My anecdotal evidence references a time in highschool when I found a hall pass on the floor in the library. I picked it up and put it in my backpack. I knew it was wrong, but figured it would get me an in school detention at worst for having an unauthorized hall pass. Well, a teacher found it and I was facing suspension for theft from a teacher. I had no idea at the time that what I was doing was theft, but upon reflection, I can see how they thought it was.
I don't find it terribly hard to imagine a similar situation with the student in question. She knew she was doing something wrong, but honestly thought it wasn't that wrong and is now freaking out at the possibility of being expelled, a possibility she never considered.
If what the administration is doing is threatening overly harsh punishment to drive a point home and teach her an important lesson, more power to them. However, if they are seriously considering taking action that would so drastically affect the student's life, I, personally, can't see how it is warranted and believe it to be an extreme over reaction.
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quote:I don't care how difficult it is to meet. I do care that you're teaching kids the state can do anything with them they want and it's ok.
They're already fully aware of that.
[edit] OK, that came off as dismissive. My point is that the hours are often attached to some in-class activity, so its entirely possible for someone to earn the 60 hours without actually doing anything outside of school. That's how it turns out for most students.
quote:If this kid is as bright as she's made out to be, she knew of this possibility.
I would like to point out that it is possiple for an incredibly bright person to make a stupid mistake that they do not fully understand the consequences of. If none of you have done this, you are far better people than I.
Let me also point out that making a "stupid mistake" doesn't absolve you from the consequences of that mistake.
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quote:Still, I wouldn't support that as a requirement to graduate. The whole idea of forced community service pisses me off greatly.
My school was at least honest about it; in several places in the literature regarding how to fulfill the requirement, there are references to "mandatory volunteering" and "compulsary volunteer work."
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quote:Let me also point out that making a "stupid mistake" doesn't absolve you from the consequences of that mistake.
But it is often a good reason to lighten the punishment for that mistake.
If this was just a lapse in judgement, then it reflects minimally on the student's character. I could imagine almost any high school student making such a mistake if the right situation arose.
quote:The whole idea of forced community service pisses me off greatly.
I agree to some degree. I like the sentiment behind teaching kids how to give their time for something, but I think forcing them to do it negates the whole point. If they are being forced into it in order to graduate, then they aren't really volunteering at all.
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"Voluntary decision" is not quite a "stupid mistake", vonk.
To be honest, I can see myself helping a close friend who, through some really bad stuff happening might fail, by fraudulently (possibly also through forgery) giving them 2 of my 38 hours of community service credit to let them through. I'm not sure if I would when faced with the decision...but I can imagine myself doing it.
But it would still be fraud and cheating, guys. Just because it's "for a good cause" doesn't change that. This isn't a "speeding to get the wife in labor to the hospital" situation, either. This is a "someone I know is in trouble, and cheating will get them out of that trouble" situation when you come right down to it.
Whether or not the student in question knew the specific consequences of this particular sort of cheating, nonetheless the student must have known (there is simply no way around this, Tresopax) that it was cheating. Smart people know that if you cheat, bad things happen.
I lack your imagination, apparently, because I can't imagine a student thinking that in a system in which x number of hours are required by each student, a student with surplus hours can give those hours to other students isn't cheating. You can hide behind "we don't know all the facts" all you like, but this is so probable as to be a given for the purposes of this conversation.
The student willfully decided to do something she knew was wrong and if caught, there would be punishment. Informing the university of her misdeeds is an obviously forseeable and reasonable outcome of her actions.
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The punishment does not need to be of any particular intensity. It is almost certainly a judgement call for whoever is handling this specific case.
If it were I that was handling the case, and the student was not fully aware of the consequences of her actions (as is very possible), but was then made aware of the consequences of her actions and thus learned her lesson, I would let it go at that. I see no need to seriously affect the rest of her life.
On the other hand, if, once she learned the severity of the act, she became andgry and disrespectful and did not make it clear that she had learned her lesson, I would, like others here, feel that she would jeopordize my standing as a trusted source of referal which could harm more students in the future. I would then tell University X of the situation.
I guess, for me, it completely depends on the attitude of the student. If she is honestly sorry and won't do it again, that's the whole point of the punishment, so there is no need to go further.
I wonder if TheSeeingHand will come back and give some more details about the situation so that one may judge better the potential outcome.
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I don't actually think the act was all that severe.
I know it is supposed to be a certain number of hours for each student, but it's unclear as to whether the assignment is supposed to benefit the student or the community. You can make a case for it benefitting the community, in which case if one student does 2 hours less and another student does 2 hours more, there's no difference.
Basically, it is wrong to share hours because it is breaking the rules. I think in this case the rules are pretty random and arbitrary to begin with. Getting her kicked out of her dream school for it is a complete power trip.
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I agree that the punishment should be molded to her reaction when confronted with her wrongdoing.
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I still don't understand why the other student didn't just do the 2 hours once he or she realized that he or she was short.
It makes me wonder if this person may have been "collecting" a few hours from a lot of different people (to add up to a large number, e.g., if he or she hadn't done any) or if her or she had to cover up for having lied and said she's done some previously that hadn't actually been done.
Something about the story as presented seems off to me.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: In my opinion, the kid should fail the course. Then, since that course it required for graduation, that means graduation may be delayed and the kid should have to finish the course in summer school or something before receiving her diploma. If that means she won't be able to attend the school she wants to, that's where the learning of a harsh lesson comes in. She can attend a junior college for the first year and re-apply to the university of her choice later. I think that's an appropriate punishment.
quote: "There's no logic in saying that any positive law penalty is a 'natural consequence' of any behavior."
quote: Notification of the college in the thread at issue was not a "positive law penalty."
The natural consequence of dishonesty is that others will discover it and therefore likely treat you differently. It's very different from an actual punishment.
The reason the girl was in trouble was because she had done something that was forbidden by the law of the school, so to speak. That is, each student had to do 20 hours of community service. The reason the girl was doing the community service was because the school had made it a requirement of the course, it was in the rules. The teachers/administrators felt she was dishonest because she broke the rules, not because the act itself was necessarily dishonest, or because of their own judgement.
If the school had said credits, hours worked, could be swapped, then even if an administrator or any other teacher had felt that what was being done was dishonest, then their telling the college would have been meaningless because the girl could have said that it was allowed by the school. Further, it is unlikely that many teachers or administrators would have felt that she was cheating if the rules had said that she wasn't.
That said, the idea that there is a 'natural consequence' to breaking a rule ignores the fact that, for a lot of rules or laws, there are a range of consequences, rather than one forced consequence, and that these consequences are artificially imposed by people, who are going to have a wide range of opinions on whether something is wrong or not, and what the consequences should be. To speak to this thread, there's nothing that says that an administrator has to tell a college, be upset with the student, or even do anything if they don't view what she did as wrong, or if they view what she did as a very small wrong, etc.
Saying that there is a 'natural consequence' to breaking a rule ignores this, it seems to me, fact of human nature and attempts to frame the argument in such a way that there is only one possible outcome with no room for argument, and attempts to short circuit the entire discussion of whether or not a wrong occured, the nature and seriousness of the wrong, the fact that people administering punishments can be stupid or blinded by ego, as is the case in Cow's thread, and the various other permutations that occur when discussing crime and punishment, wrongs and rights. To further use Cow's thread as an examples, I guarantee you that there are people saying that the kid should just shut up and take his lumps. 'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.'
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:The teachers/administrators felt she was dishonest because she broke the rules, not because the act itself was necessarily dishonest, or because of their own judgement.
At some point there was a falsification of some record for this to have happened. They felt she was dishonest because she lied. This was not wrong only because a rule existed it. It was wrong and an abuse of trust.
The natural consequence - not "the only possible outcome," which is a drastic change from "natural consequence" - of lying is that you will be thought a liar. The natural consequence of being thought a liar is that 1) other people will find out about the untrustworthiness of the liar, and 2) those others might alter the way they interact with that liar.
This girl is being protected from the natural consequence of her lies by the school's coverup.
quote:To further use Cow's thread as an examples, I guarantee you that there are people saying that the kid should just shut up and take his lumps. 'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.'
Your equation of the natural consequences of lying and "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" is fallacious. What this girl did was wrong absent any rules. Now, if the requirement could be fulfilled by another's hours, she wouldn't have done anything wrong. But she would have done something different - that is, not lie - had the rules allowed substitution of hours by another person.
The rules were the motive for the lie, not the cause of it.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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