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This thread, more than any I have read on Hacker News shows the greatest variation of opinion, and the least ability for us to have common agreement upon terms,

This thread, more than any I have read on Hacker News shows the greatest variation of opinion, and the least ability for us to have common agreement upon terms, normative behaviours, standards of judgement or goals. Sadly, education really is a mess. I think it reflects the schisms within wider society. After 30 years in and out of "academia" I am exasperated and despondent at the state of affairs and what I consider the total bastardisation of the function of education. The OP story of rampant, shameless cheating is all too familiar and is simply grist for the mill. It's something to which most professors have grown thick skins. This is the ordinary background against which we have to teach, day in, day out. Despite being a optimist in so many areas of life I see little prospect of fixing this without extraordinary and radical changes in the governance, funding and mission of universities.

themantalope 4y ago
I'm curious, what changes in governance and funding to higher ed institutions would you change? What did you teach/study?
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Thanks for asking. I am an international visiting professor of computer science (specialising in DSP, signals and systems). I'd submit that's given me a fairly wide experience of higher education at least around the north-western hemisphere over three decades. Enough that I write regular and quite popular features for the Times. Any sincere answer is surely the contents of at least one whole book, so my response here would disappoint you. Instead please read my more positive commentary here [1] and here [2]. [1] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/author/andy-farnell https://www.timeshighereducation.com/author/andy-farnell [2] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/authors/andy-farnell https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/authors/andy-far...
- andai 4y ago
  Also, how would that impact cheating? I don't see the connection.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    Cheating is a consequence of unfair values that push otherwise morally upright, hard-working people to transgress. Governance determines the values of a system. Therefore rampant cheating may be seen as symptom of a failure of governance, so improving it would reduce cheating. Hope that helps you to see the connection.
323 4y ago
Kids cheating seems to be an universal behavior, it happens in very different educational systems (US, Europe, Eastern Europe). I remember when I was a student, cheating didn't seem that much of a crime, to me, or to my peers. We mostly understood that if you cheat you might (or not) have problems later because you just basically wasted time in that course. So it was an assumed risk. It feels to me that the fight against cheating is basically fighting against (kids) human nature. Also, snitching on cheaters was unthinkable. And not because of retaliation, but it just felt like very scummy behavior. In a way, like how criminal law in most places doesn't require family members to snitch on other family members who committed a crime.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > It feels to me that the fight against cheating is basically fighting against (kids) human nature. Yes you're absolutely right. Wars on symptomatic abstractions like "drugs", "terrorism" and "poverty" are always failures and become ad-hominem, as wars on addicts, wars of terror, and wars against the poor. As surely as thieving loaves of bread is a response to starvation, cheating is just another symptom - as you say, a naturally human response - to an unjust and impossible circumstances. That doesn't make it "right", but the context at least offers us some understanding. People will stop seeing "selfishly gaming the system" as acceptable social behaviour once our systems resume serving the fullest interests of the people instead of trying to control, manipulate and limit them to the benefit of the few.
styren 4y ago
I've personally never witnessed any cheating, heard any friends or students even allude to doing so, I never cheated myself and I can't even comprehend how you would cheat at most of the coursework I did in uni in Sweden. Sure you could copy your friends code, but you still had to present it to a TA who would certainly get suspicious if you couldn't answer to what you had written. Ditto for exams and essays/reports. Cheating, or elaborating on how to cheat, just wasn't efficient use of my time as a student, disregarding the morality of it. Frankly, it seems to me the way these students are being tested is not appropriate as it's easy to abuse and creates incentives for students to cheat.
- bckr 4y ago
  What was the average number of students in your classes, and the average number of TAs?
  - styren 4y ago
    IIRC 150 students and maybe 6-10 TAs per class
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > I've personally never witnessed any cheating, heard any friends or students even allude to doing so, I never cheated myself and I can't even comprehend how you would cheat at most of the coursework I did in uni in Sweden. For most of my life I would've been frightened to even say so, or risk accusations of being a "swot", "teachers pet" or as the Aussies call it, "a tall poppy". But the attitude that it's "normal" to cheat is common within US/UK/AUS culture now. Truth is I always considered cheating beneath me and was simply _WAY_ ahead of every class I ever took - but you can't say that in "polite" US/UK culture - one cannot be too pious and clean-cut, one must seem little bit like "everybody else" - even if everybody else is not really like that, if that makes sense. So actually I've taught at universities in Sweden (Stockholm) and Finland (Helsinki) and notice similar attitudes to those you say. But those cultures aren't without dirty hands either. Here's the weird thing: Tall Poppy Syndrome is culturally closest to Jante Law [1], a Scandinavian ethos of "Don't think you're better than anyone else" which is precisely the corrosive culture that means people cheat because everybody else is cheating and causes a downward spiral or race to the bottom. "When you've done your very best When things turn out unpleasant When the best of men take bribes Isn't it the fool who doesn't?" -- Human League 1978 It wasn't until I became a professor that I even knew this dynamic existed, but now I see it everywhere, not just in school. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

themantalope 4y ago

I'm curious, what changes in governance and funding to higher ed institutions would you change? What did you teach/study?

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Thanks for asking. I am an international visiting professor of computer science (specialising in DSP, signals and systems). I'd submit that's given me a fairly wide experience of higher education at least around the north-western hemisphere over three decades. Enough that I write regular and quite popular features for the Times. Any sincere answer is surely the contents of at least one whole book, so my response here would disappoint you. Instead please read my more positive commentary here [1] and here [2]. [1] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/author/andy-farnell https://www.timeshighereducation.com/author/andy-farnell [2] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/authors/andy-farnell https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/authors/andy-far...
andai 4y ago
Also, how would that impact cheating? I don't see the connection.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Cheating is a consequence of unfair values that push otherwise morally upright, hard-working people to transgress. Governance determines the values of a system. Therefore rampant cheating may be seen as symptom of a failure of governance, so improving it would reduce cheating. Hope that helps you to see the connection.

323 4y ago

Kids cheating seems to be an universal behavior, it happens in very different educational systems (US, Europe, Eastern Europe). I remember when I was a student, cheating didn't seem that much of a crime, to me, or to my peers. We mostly understood that if you cheat you might (or not) have problems later because you just basically wasted time in that course. So it was an assumed risk. It feels to me that the fight against cheating is basically fighting against (kids) human nature. Also, snitching on cheaters was unthinkable. And not because of retaliation, but it just felt like very scummy behavior. In a way, like how criminal law in most places doesn't require family members to snitch on other family members who committed a crime.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> It feels to me that the fight against cheating is basically fighting against (kids) human nature. Yes you're absolutely right. Wars on symptomatic abstractions like "drugs", "terrorism" and "poverty" are always failures and become ad-hominem, as wars on addicts, wars of terror, and wars against the poor. As surely as thieving loaves of bread is a response to starvation, cheating is just another symptom - as you say, a naturally human response - to an unjust and impossible circumstances. That doesn't make it "right", but the context at least offers us some understanding. People will stop seeing "selfishly gaming the system" as acceptable social behaviour once our systems resume serving the fullest interests of the people instead of trying to control, manipulate and limit them to the benefit of the few.

styren 4y ago

I've personally never witnessed any cheating, heard any friends or students even allude to doing so, I never cheated myself and I can't even comprehend how you would cheat at most of the coursework I did in uni in Sweden. Sure you could copy your friends code, but you still had to present it to a TA who would certainly get suspicious if you couldn't answer to what you had written. Ditto for exams and essays/reports. Cheating, or elaborating on how to cheat, just wasn't efficient use of my time as a student, disregarding the morality of it. Frankly, it seems to me the way these students are being tested is not appropriate as it's easy to abuse and creates incentives for students to cheat.

bckr 4y ago
What was the average number of students in your classes, and the average number of TAs?
- styren 4y ago
  IIRC 150 students and maybe 6-10 TAs per class
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> I've personally never witnessed any cheating, heard any friends or students even allude to doing so, I never cheated myself and I can't even comprehend how you would cheat at most of the coursework I did in uni in Sweden. For most of my life I would've been frightened to even say so, or risk accusations of being a "swot", "teachers pet" or as the Aussies call it, "a tall poppy". But the attitude that it's "normal" to cheat is common within US/UK/AUS culture now. Truth is I always considered cheating beneath me and was simply _WAY_ ahead of every class I ever took - but you can't say that in "polite" US/UK culture - one cannot be too pious and clean-cut, one must seem little bit like "everybody else" - even if everybody else is not really like that, if that makes sense. So actually I've taught at universities in Sweden (Stockholm) and Finland (Helsinki) and notice similar attitudes to those you say. But those cultures aren't without dirty hands either. Here's the weird thing: Tall Poppy Syndrome is culturally closest to Jante Law [1], a Scandinavian ethos of "Don't think you're better than anyone else" which is precisely the corrosive culture that means people cheat because everybody else is cheating and causes a downward spiral or race to the bottom. "When you've done your very best When things turn out unpleasant When the best of men take bribes Isn't it the fool who doesn't?" -- Human League 1978 It wasn't until I became a professor that I even knew this dynamic existed, but now I see it everywhere, not just in school. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante