Plongement de la Mer Argentée

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on Wednesday, April 25, 2007,3:10:00 PM

What Are Educators Turning Into?

Answer this simple question: What are educators turning into?

There are many possibilities, but is there a chance that educators (especially ones put in charge of growing kids) are educating the future of this world wrongly?

Plagiarism is illegal. It is not child's play. Are educators encouraging this of their charges in the name of 'sharing' and 'learning'? Maybe. High chance. Read on. In order not to get myself into trouble, I am going to replace the names of these people I am going to write about. Why? Because I am not stupid, and I am able to tell a woven tale from fact, as you will see for yourselves later on.

Let's call the prime character, a certain China girl in my class, G. We will call the teacher/educator H. We will call my co-victim T. (Note: I come from an all-girls school and the teacher is female).

A few months ago, H asked us to write compositions. After she'd finished marking them, H returned them to us, and asked the few girls who'd scored tops to correct their compositions respectively, then to email them to her and then she would print out copies for the entire class. Now, T noticed that G, who did not score very high, had copied a sentence/paragraph (I can't remember which, but I think it was a paragraph) from one of her compositions from the past year (the teacher then did the same thing). T got mad and confronted H. H said that this was NOT plagiarisation, but a form of learning. T failed to convince H that what G was doing is plagiarisation. T refused to let H print any more of her compositions for the class anymore.

Some time passed, and another of my compositions came out in print, and then we did another essay, and when it was returned, I discovered that G had plagiarised a sentence from my essay. I was mad, and confronted H. H insisted that it was a form of learning. I refused to let her print any more of my essays anymore.

Then just today, my teacher announced that G had scored the highest for our composition writing in the entire class. Following, she then asked G to read out her composition to the entire class. Note: G tried to avoid this, and even reminded H that her period was over, it was not. Anyway, the very first few words, I recognised as mine in other compositions from last year when my teacher had printed them out. I continued to listen carefully. As her story unfolded, I recognised more and more of my work plagiarised directly onto her composition and read out until my classmates started staring at me. See? People notice. At one point, she turned in her seat and giggled, "Sorry, Wan Li, giggle... giggle... giggle...". T was gesturing frantically at me.

When one of my classmates adressed this problem, H said that it was fine, and this was only learning. My hands had turned cold and my heart was thumping hard. I could not believe this. Her entire composition was copied from mine. Almost word for word. Even the plot was exactly the same. I can swear. I can also swear that she had copied my entire composition. Everything was exactly the same. If not, 99.9%. The remaining 0.1% is made up of other stuff that she used to conform to the requirements of the situation we were given to write about, and that's about it. She even copied my starting from previous compositions from last year. And other words she used to pair with mine. Otherwise, it is a pure and fully 100% plagiarised from mine, and that means word for word. H then reminded us that it was done in class and no reference to any models were allowed but my classmates reminded H that G had brought hers home to complete because she had another examination that day. H then asked G if she'd copied. G denied it and told H that she remembered it from my composition. Not true. How could one person copy everything almost word for word? What are the chances of that happening? I can swear, she'd copied my entire composition onto her paper save for a few words. It was word for word, I can swear that. Every exact word. How do you explain that? How? Huh? If you're smart and not a retard, I think you know what I'm saying here.

And I think everybody noticed. Good. They were staring at me. I stared right back. Also, I received a tip-off from someone that another girl who was refusing profusely (and acting pretty concerned towards me and waggling her eyebrows at me) to read her composition out loud to the class had plagiarised from me too. Thanks, friend-who-told-me. The best part is, H encourages this. And I still remember she once mentioned that it was alright to copy the words and descriptive phrases but NOT to copy the plot. Gee, you wonder, what happened to that?

Second best part? I can't emphasize enough, how G copied most of my stuff WORD FOR WORD. Those she copied, she copied word for word. Others, she paired them with other phrases. I can't believe her. This is the third time she's been discovered, but I believe that these are not the first three times. H also mentioned that even authors' books are widely known, and that everybody can see the stuff they've written and can copy. Okay, excuse me, H? These authors' stuff is copyrighted. And copying anybody's work is plagiarisation.

So after school I went up to G. I said, "Hey G," (Of course, I called her by her name, but we're substituting it for 'G', remember?). Her head was still turned away and she continued walking, ignoring me. I can't remember if I said this, "I can't believe you would do that," but I know she continued ignoring me, until I said, "That was so low."

Then she turned around to look at me, and I walked on, grabbing my friend's bag and pulling her along. Her bag was smashing along the lockers so it was pretty funny, and I laughed. I am going to confront H about it tomorrow again, not that I think anything will change, but I am going to prove my point. And I will. Now you think for yourselves, and I don't change your opinions, so if you think this is wrong, I know there's nothing much we can do, but thanks, you guys (my close friends, you know who you are) for supporting me... kinda. (: Kiss-kiss.