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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Damn, damn, damn. That is TENSE.

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Yoav Grunstein's avatar

Thanks Seth, this one is my new favorite. How to reconcile Tommy Gray’s commandment with the immorality of cheating though? It’s not collaboration when one person does the work and the other contributes nothing to reap the same reward.

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Seth Biderman's avatar

Thanks, Yoav! Here's what I think the Dali Lama would do, if he had to sub for Ms. Ortega one day: "Muchachos," he'd say, "some of you are not doing well in the course, some of you are. Everyone who is doing well, find someone who is not dong well. Don't give them the answers, but see what you can do to help them out. And we'll keep working on this together until we are satisfied that everyone in this room understands the material." And it would be a wonderful lovefest until a small group of parents come storming the principal's office to complain that their children are not going to get into college because the kooky math teacher sub is asking their children to teach the slower kids in the class, which is admirable but that is not their children's job, goddamnit, and they're going to sue... and so the principal would prohibit His Holiness from further substituting in the school....)

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Anne Geffner's avatar

I was thinking of something else until I read T. R. Comment. Yes!!! How can we work together to help and understand each other.

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Theodore Richards's avatar

Sir Ken Robinson has a great quote about this, which I can only paraphrase: in any other area of human endeavor we call it collaboration, but in schools we call it cheating.

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Seth Biderman's avatar

Always a mystery to me how the British school system could produce a thinker like Sir Ken Robinson!

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Arthur E Baraf's avatar

It occurs to me that "Don’t be an asshole" is one of my core guiding principles

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