Consequences are important. How can anyone learn anything if there are never any consequences to their actions? If I do something bad, there will likely be negative consequences. If I’m smart, I won’t do that again.

Via New Breed Librarian, I read yesterday about a biology class in Kansas wherein 28 of the 118 sophomore students plagiarized from the Internet for a final project that was worth fifty-percent of their overall course grade. The teacher found out. She gave those 28 students zeros for the project, just like she warned she would in the syllabus. The parents got mad and bullied the school. The principal “reluctantly” ordered the teacher to not only give those students grades for the plagiarized work, but also to weigh the project at only thirty-percent of the course grade as opposed to fifty.

One parent of a student who was not among those caught plagiarizing said that she agrees with the decision to give grades to those who cheated. She said that the students didn’t intend to plagiarize. She said that intent is everything. The University of Texas at Austin feels differently: “Plagiarism, strictly speaking, is not a question of intent. Any use of the content or style of another’s intellectual product without proper attribution constitutes plagiarism.”

To me, this is right a par with the whole notion of no-competition that some schools practice. The philosophy there is “No one wins, no one loses.” It’s all about playing the game. I never want my children in an environment where they are not stimulated by a certain degree of external motivation, be it an award for winning or a punishment for cheating. How are children ever going to learn to be good at something if they’re not motivated to be better? What’s going to happen to these 28 students when they get out into the real world and do something like this? Are mommy and daddy going to step in then, too? Are mommy and daddy going to demand that the police officer go easy on him/her because little Johnny didn’t “intend” steal that item, or hit that old lady crossing the street, or fabricate billions of dollars in profit? (Wouldn’t Ken Lay like to have parents like these! Oh wait, there’s Cheney. Never mind.) If I found out my 16 year old son had plagiarized, I would expect him to be reprimanded. If that means getting a zero, that means getting a zero. Academic dishonesty at UT is grounds for expulsion. Correct me if I’m wrong, but getting a zero at 16 is far better than getting expelled from college.

We can’t exist in a society where no one is accountable and everyone wins all the time. It just doesn’t work if everyone is equally qualified to do everything. Society works because some people are better at some things than I am and because I am better at some things than you are or than they are, and you are better at some things than any of us. To teach children that no one is better than they are at something is to take away the motivation to become better. I can stand on the sidelines my whole life and shout, “Julien! You’re doing a GREAT job! Keep it up!” But pretty soon, that’s not going to be enough. “There’s my crazy dad yelling positive thoughts at me again.” Pretty soon, he’s going to need more. He’s going to want to win. And the only way to build up that desire is to lose a few times first.

But I digress. The NYT article goes on to talk about how this decision has affected the 90 students who didn’t cheat: “Many parents have expressed sympathy for the 75 percent of students who did not cheat, some of whom received lower semester grades in biology when the project they had slaved over suddenly counted less than they had anticipated.” Everyone loses because a few cheated. Not only that, but now all those students (the cheaters and the honest alike) know that if they just get their parents to stand up for them, they can change the rules entirely. It won’t matter what the syllabus says. Mommy and daddy don’t like it. Teacher has to change it.

I think the requirements outlined in the syllabus ought to be respected. I think all 28 plagiarists ought to fail. Our society can’t afford any more cheaters. We have far too many as it is.