Study for us.

William Cheah

4 April · Edited
I used to teach an English Foundation class for a local private
college some years back. The class consisted of a mixture of locals
and foreign students, of which the majority of the foreign students
were from China and Indonesia. They would make up about half the
class, with the remainder from Malaysia.

Entry to this class was based on whether the students passed their
language proficiency test. If they failed they had to take this class.
I found it strange that such a large number of Malaysians had to take
this class, with English being our second official language. But
that's not the story this time around.

I tried to make the class something different. Instead of being
totally based on exams, I structured the marking scheme on 60%
assignment, 20% exam and 20% presentation. On the first day of class,
I would explain this to the students. The assignment was always the
same. I wanted them to do something, anything, based on the
Environment, and present a report with photos, etc etc and to be
completed with a written essay of not less than 1500 words. The choice
of topic was theirs although we would have different topics on
environment for discussion during every class. They had until the
final 2 weeks before the end of the semester to hand it up. And of
course they could consult me at anytime.

The interesting thing is this. Out of nearly 500 students who went
through this course, only 1 Malaysian student ever consulted me. The
rest were foreign students.

So comes the day to hand in the assignments. They would pile their
reports on my desk. I would take a look and tell them this. "There is
something you have to know. When I go through your assignment, and I
feel that you have copied and pasted the report, I will choose 5
sentences from the report and ask you to explain the meaning to me. It
can also be the meaning of a word. If you can't I will fail your
assignment."

Silence in the class.....chirp chirp chirp....

"Now I will go for a 5 minute toilet break. If you feel you need to
redo your report, please feel free to take your report back and slide
it under my door before the end of next week."

In close to 3 years I taught this class, by the time I came back after
5 minutes, the pile on the table will be down by half...always.

And those who took back were nearly always the Malaysian students.

You see, our students were very smart. They felt they did not need to
learn and put in the effort. They felt that by copying something from
the Internet, they would pass the class easily. By the way, this is
called plagiarism.

My question today is, is it the fault of the education system? Is it
an attitude problem? Or is it both?

Are we now reaping the fruits of what we have sown over the years. To
achieve results without the need to analyse, understand and put in the
effort? Building a society where the effort of thinking is secondary
as long as the results favour us? To accept blindly what is in front
of us because the alternative of discovering more takes too much
effort.

A friend of mine used to say, if we are too lazy to look left and
right before we cross the road, we are bound to be hit by by a car
sooner or later.