An extraordinarily disheartening article for teachers (mostly college, but I bet high school too)

[tzikeh]

The Shadow Scholar: The man who writes your students' papers tells his story

You've never heard of me, but there's a good chance that you've read some of my work. I'm a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can't detect, that you can't defend against, that you may not even know exists. (emphasis mine)

And now we have even more of an understanding of why so many people in the workforce have absolutely no fucking clue what they're doing.

(I'm particularly frightened by the fact that he's responsible for terrible nursing students graduating and becoming nurses.)

In happier news: once I (finally!) get my teacher certification for Secondary Education in English/Language Arts (grades 8-12), I will be automatically certified to teach theater, speech, and social studies as well, thanks to all of the transferable credits from Northwestern University. \o/

Comments

[octavia-b.livejournal.com]

Don't they still have to sit exams though? Papers are only worth a percentage of the overall mark for a subject and final exams are still worth a fair bit more aren't they?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Most college classes that require papers don't require exams. They usually have final papers or paper projects. Exams generally occur in the sciences. If you'll note, most of the work he's done is not in those kinds of classes.

Plus, many people can retain information and sit exams, but that doesn't mean they can put together a paper that requires research and independent, critical thought. That's a very different skillset Than memorization and regurgitation.

[octavia-b.livejournal.com]

Interesting - back when I was at uni my Lit and Law degrees both required 50% exam and 50% research paper for every subject. It was only once you got past undergraduate level that exams started being phased out. I'm pretty sure that's still the case here even now. It's definitely the case at secondary school, which still requires end-of-year statewide exams worth 50% of the overall mark for Years 11 and 12. (I'm in Australia and our system is much closer to the UK one than the US one.)

It sucks for kids who get freaked out by exams, of course.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Huh - interesting. We have standardized exams nationwide for students in 4th, 8th, and... 12th grade, I think, but they have nothing to do with grades that students get in school - they're part of the NEAP (pretty much the "national report card") to see how the students of America are reading, writing, etc.

As for college, how the class is structured (papers, exams, orals, etc.) differs from professor to professor, let alone university to university. There are no nationwide standards for that.

High-school students probably still have some exams, but I'm certain that the vast majority of this guy's work is for college and grad school. For what he charges, I don't know that a lot of teenagers could afford it.