GranolaBox

The quote “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying” is often misused. Jim Rome uses it a lot on his radio show. According “Jungle” lore, it was most famously used by a pro baseball coach who used it to encourage his team’s base runners to lead off bases more to and consequently steal more bases. My kids’ recent lackluster performance on their Christmas puzzle has raised some troubling questions about this issue.

I like to get creative in the way I present my Christmas presents to my daughters. This year we got the girls season passes to Sea Breeze, our wonderful local amusement park. In order to figure out what their present was, I gave them a series of clues.. phrases I cut and pasted from the park’s website.

They hypothesized but didn’t do much internet research until deciding that since I wasn’t going to tell them that they’d show their mothers/stepfathers the clues and let them figure it out on the internet. Smallest persisted, continuing her non-web deductions until she got the right answer.

I was kind of disappointed and just a little worried about their lack of curiosity and lack of the internet savvy to figure out the puzzle in a matter of minutes like the Queen of My Universe, or most of my internet-savvy students would do it. I see this as a mixed blessing.

A couple months ago, one of my students tipped me off accidentally that the test bank I used to create my AP US Government and Politics tests is available, answer key and all, online. I only needed to type the first line of the first question on Google, and there it was after only a vague tip and thirty seconds of web research. (AP Government teachers using Wilson and DiIulio’s American Government… please take note!)

So, on one hand, this lack of curiosity on the part of my daughters is a good sign, because maybe they won’t use the internet to cheat on tests like many of my resourceful, albeit academically dishonest students. As a teacher, naturally I see this as a good thing.

On the other hand, I’m slightly concerned that even at their tender ages that they lack the skill or desire to use the tremendous amount of information that for good or ill is always at their fingertips. I’m glad they don’t cheat, but will they get trounced by those who do as the economy gets worse? Will they be able to compete in a job market that I’m sure will be even tighter in the upcoming decade that marks their entry into the world of work?

Filed under: General Observations, Teaching on December 27th, 2009