[ExI] I don't understand students: help !

[Tamás Pardy]

On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 6:49 AM, giovanni santost
<santostasigio at yahoo.com> wrote:
> What is happening with students ??
> She is fighting with me claiming I never mentioned they could not paste and
> copy to do their semester project and that she didn't do anything wrong. She
> want to go and debate this with my superiors.
> What is going on in the minds of these students?
> She is not the only one with this sense of the entitlement and reckless
> arrogance.

I study to be an engineer and have a possible solution. We had a
course on writing stuff like publications etc. and there the teacher
(originally a journalist) ensured that we don't plagiarise by making
us handwrite two (or so) pages. Actually, I hated that (and wrote on
the computer, then copied it to paper:D) but it works! Plus if
somebody gave in a plagiarised essay, they would have to rewrite it,
or get a failed course...

Besides all that, I think respect is the cornerstone of human
interaction. And this has nothing to do with the quality of education
or the people involved. This is something to be learned at a very
young age (or should be, but is not currently taught at. say,
elementary school). There were subjects at high school I didn't like,
but at university one is given complete freedom to avoid those.
Therefore I don't understand the behavior of the student in question.

Tom