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The students are alright
Dan Drezner
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Kai Ryssdal: UCLA's Anderson School doesn't start its fall semester for another couple of weeks yet. But plenty of schools have already begun. Textbooks have been bought. Studying has started. Yeah right, maybe not that one. But class being in session has gotten commentator and college professor Dan Drezner thinking about the state of the modern student.
DANIEL DREZNER: Everyone knows that with the passing of Labor Day, a new batch of 18-year-olds begins their college years. What is less well-known is that this date also marks the start of teachers complaining about the latest crop of students. The refrain has been the same since the days of Socrates: The young people, they ain't what they used to be. As a college professor, I've heard, and perhaps uttered, some of these complaints.
Recent data suggests, however, that this lament might contain some truth. A new University of California study reveals that the amount of time college students spend studying has plummeted over the past 50 years -- from 24 hours a week in 1961 to 14 hours today. Perhaps this is because students have replaced real studying with cutting and pasting from Wikipedia. According to a recent story in the New York Times, current college students are less troubled by plagiarism than their professors.
So, are the kids today ruining everything? Not really. The research reveals that the overwhelming majority of the drop-off in studying time occurred between 1961 and 1981 -- well before incoming freshmen were born. Indeed, one could argue that online innovations have made the current generation of students more productive studiers than prior generations. Maybe they study less now, but they also study more productively.
The attitudes towards plagiarism are potentially more troubling, but much of the Times' information in the story seems to rest on anecdote rather than broad-based data. Well, here's an anecdote of my own: I haven't caught any of my students plagiarizing for the past decade. Of course, maybe I'm just a bad detective.
Some research suggests that as students matriculate, they develop a better understanding of plagiarism and try harder to avoid it. But it is also worth asking why students might possess more casual attitudes towards plagiarism. One reason: A number of celebrity professors have been caught cutting and pasting other people's work too. These professors mostly got off with slaps on the wrist. No wonder students might be confused.
Today's students are being bombarded with more information, more technology and more media than ever before. Some professors might say this leaves them brain-fried and desperate to use shortcuts. I say, to quote a recent movie title, that the kids are all right.
Ryssdal: Dan Drezner is a professor of international politics at Tufts University.
The author's grammar isn't all right, though! I wonder where he went to school!?!?! I also teach at a local university where plagiarism rears its ugly, multiheaded self even in my classroom. Slay that hydra with at least one lecture on quotation methods, and a sharp pen for grading.
Mr. Ryssdal and Dr. Drezner
Your report hit me to the core, since I am one of those troubling students born in the era of computers and instant information. I am currently a grad student who works full-time plus some as a military officer and at night goes to school full-time. I can tell you this is only possible due to the rapid availability of information and the rise in what I like to call degree farms (I attend a tier-3 school). Academics in such schools is lack luster at best allowing further declines in the amount of study time needed. My fellow students at this tier-3 school complain more and attempt to find more shortcuts more than any place I had the pleasure of attending.
At my tier-1 undergradute university, I had to study to no end and plagarism or other forms of academic dishonesty were strictly out of the question. Perhaps experience has taught me to study more effectively, but I doubt it. Perhaps my military service teaches me to produce works that are mine, but I doubt that is the principal reason. These kids aren't what they used to be because the quality of education has declined on aggregate due to the rise of these degree farms and the increased emphasis on teaching to pass state tests utlizing shortcuts if needed.
Scholarship at all levels is failing our kids. Don't blame them blame the system that created them; a system that rewards shortcuts even if unethical.
I sure hope that Professor Drezner knows the true origin of "the kids are alright" unlike the previous poster who is calling this a grammatical mistake. And it certainly was NOT the recent movie. Kind of like thinking the guys who called their restaurant Ruby Tuesday came up with a clever name on their own! Don't use (or comment on) cultural references if you don't know what they are!
