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Interestingly when I was in high school (back in the somewhat early(ish) days of the web) we had an assignment in some English class to do some kind of writing
by aestra 13y ago
Interestingly when I was in high school (back in the somewhat early(ish) days of the web) we had an assignment in some English class to do some kind of writing and then copy it and distribute it to the class and read it aloud. This didn't have to be typed, almost everyone did it hand written, just had to be photocopied. I don't remember the topic of the writing at all.
Someone handed out a paper that looked excellent, I read it before he read it aloud, and I didn't believe he wrote it. It was too good and seemed above something a high schooler would write. I changed my mind and believe he wrote it when he read it aloud because the way he read it, he owned it. He read it just like it was something he wrote himself. After he was done the teacher said "that was good, but you didn't write this, you downloaded this from the Internet." She didn't ask him, she didn't check, she just publicly accused him. He looked shocked and said "No I didn't!" where she just kept insisting he did without any proof whatsoever except that the paper was just good. She may have just blindly failed him on the assignment.
Off topic but other student in this assignment handed out another paper which was full of misspellings and grammatical errors. Absolutely chock full of them, to the point you could hardly read it. After she read it, the teacher said "there's a lot of misspellings" to which she protested "my computer doesn't have spellcheck." She really thought this was a legitimate excuse, in English class. Like not having spellcheck excuses you from 1) proofreading and 2) picking up and old fashioned paper dictionary.
- robmclarty 13y agoFunny. I had a similar experience myself in art class in high school. The assignment was to take a photo from a magazine and reproduce its likeness with pencil and paper. I must have just had good shape and spacial recognition because the drawing I made just happened to be approximately the same size and proportions of the magazine photo I was using as reference and, so, the teacher accused me of simply tracing it. I got a zero on the assignment and was accused of being a hack in front of all my peers even though I drew it freehand, from sight (the way we were instructed). IMHO there's too much emphasis placed on doing things the "right" way and not enough on actually getting things done. Even if I did simply trace the photo, I still would have had a learning experience, engaging pencil, hand, and paper and understanding a bit more about how they work (to me, the purpose of the assignment). Regardless of how a thing is made, if it actually gets made and gets into other people's heads and gives them an experience worth having, I think it has done its job. I took up my dispute with the vice-principle along with my parents and redid the assignment on thick, opaque card-stock (that couldn't possibly be used to trace through) and reproduced another photo with just as much accuracy. I went on to attend art school and win illustration awards despite my horrible experiences with art in high school, but I worry that another student might have abandoned their pursuit of art and deprived the world of their creativity, given such negative feedback. I feel we all need to lighten up a bit.