Teaching in China: Cheating

5:26 p.m. - 2005-11-16
Cheating
My students in China often think that it will take less time to find a passage on the internet than it will for them to write a piece of their own work. It doesn't matter that they should be talking about their family or if they are writing about themselves. They often feel that the internet will provide them with much better writing than what they can do themselves. This is a hard notion to dissuade. So, as instructors we spend an amazing amount of time explaining the value of a personal voice and the importance of the individual within the group. We often need to combine the notion of group think with the idea that a personal choice can be for the group as well. I spend a great deal of time teaching my students that being a part of the community does not always mean using the communities work, sometimes it means doing your own work and contributing to the community yourself. When they realize this, they become the best writers in the world. The most creative and the most motivated. Because they really can do it. But first, we have to teach them that it is wrong to take it off the internet. There is more value in their own writing.