“Thou shalt not steal: an empty feat,
When it’s so lucrative to cheat.”
– Arthur Hugh Clough, “The Latest Decalogue”

Contrary to popular belief, kids today are learning something.  I have proof.  Every week on one of the Q&A Web sites where I work, students post questions such as this:  “Identify the part of speech of the underlined words in these sentences.”  Then the sentences appear.  In due course, some volunteer with a knowledge of English grammar posts the answers for the student.

Cynical people may argue that no learning has taken place, that the student is merely getting answers.  But these people are wrong.  In the first place, learning has already occurred in the very act of asking the question, for the student has had to learn how to cut and paste to post the homework assignment on the Web site.  Indeed, the student may have had to learn how to use a scanner.  And what, in this age of swiping stuff off the Internet, can be more important to learn than how to cut and paste?

Secondly, the student has acquired the answers.  And if you don’t think that getting the answers is the name of the game, you have not been following the trends in modern American education.  The whole idea is to get answers on tests.  No matter how the answers are gotten, getting the answers makes everyone look good – teachers, students, the school board, everyone.  That's what standardized tests are all about.

But, the cynics say, there’s more to knowledge than giving the right answers; there are principles and concepts.  Such thinking is obviously muddle-headed.  One cannot test for knowledge of principles and concepts except by giving essay tests.  And any teacher worthy of a B.S. in education can testify to how bothersome it is to deal with student essays, while objective tests can be op-scanned by a machine.  An educational system geared to the mass production of semiliterate parrots doesn't have the time for essay tests.

Furthermore, essay tests cannot be critiqued without damaging students’ self-esteem, causing outbursts from irate parents and forcing school administrators to put in eight-hour days dealing with complaints.  Besides, it’s easy for students to download essays from the Internet, and – though we shouldn’t be too hard on the little dears for using these resources – some hard-nosed old-timers persist in believing that turning in someone else’s essay as one’s own constitutes plagiarism.  School boards can be very hard on teachers who fail students who copy essays, for such self-righteous pedagogical insistence upon having students do their own work can bring down the wrath of parents.

A student who gets the answers from an obliging authority in the field is learning valuable principles of the type that make people successful.  Isn’t the President one of the most successful people in the world?  Doesn’t he surround himself with people who give him answers?  You don’t think he writes his own speeches, do you?  Don't corporate executives hire people to write letters, memos, and reports for them – and then sign their own names?  And who's making the big bucks – the hired help or the executives?

“But,” say the cynics, “That isn’t the same thing.  If you give answers without requiring the student to work at getting them, you’re saying that the end justifies the means.”  Precisely.  And isn’t that what capitalism is all about?  It’s the bottom line, stupid.  The right answer, however it is derived, is analogous to profit.  And what corporation is successful if it doesn’t put primary emphasis on making a profit?

The cynics at this point are likely to retreat into some idiotic platitude about honesty, inadvertently betraying how out of touch they are with reality.  When was the last time anyone saw a commercial placed on TV by a major corporation that told the unvarnished truth?  No, sir, they lie.  And why?  Because the means do justify the end.  So if students are learning how to get the answers (end) from people on the Internet (means), they are learning a valuable survival skill in a capitalistic society.  Why, we might even call it a research skill.

Naturally, some teachers are unreasonable enough to still require reading and book reports (worst of all, books by dead white men such as Shakespeare and Dickens).  Thanks to modern technology, students are learning to circumvent this time-consuming and wasteful process by downloading essays from the Internet.  They thus learn another “end justifies the means” lesson along with a principle held in high esteem in many work environments – fast delivery with a minimum of work (facilitated, of course, by high-tech wizardry).

Yes, students today are certainly learning something.  It’s the ultimate application of a concept  stated years ago in the immortal words of Tom Lehrer:

"Plagiarize, plagiarize. / Let no-one else's words evade your eyes. / Remember why the good Lord made your eyes. / So, plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize. / (Only be sure always to call it research.)"

Rich Turner