Christoph Reuss wrote:
[snip]
> This reminds me of a news-item I read some time ago about some UK teachers
> who helped their pupils cheating during exams. They did this to make
> their school look better compared to other schools, so their own school
> would get more funding. Ain't competition wonderful ?
Examinations are artificially imposed obstacles between
a person and their aspirations. They are the results of
power constellations which most students are powerless
to affect, and even the rich seem to have been brainwashed
into believing they should submit to them.
I seriously doubt Montaigne or Aristotle ever
had to pass an examination. Who stops to
think what an indignity and humiliation
subjecting a person to an "examination" is?
Occasionally, in the most extreme forms, i.e.,
Joe McCarthy and Stalin's show trials, people
do see a problem. But what are the SATs LSATs
GREs and ETCs but low grade (for lower grades)
"ordeals" (<- ref. to the procedures of the
Inquisition)?
Think about the meaning of the word: "fail".
Failing an exam can be a life (death)
sentence. Instead of becoming a
Tenured Professor or a CEO, one becomes a
Wage Laborer....
It is simply inconsistent with human dignity
to do this to people. And what about the "winners"?
Well, isn't it everybody's hope that one day
they will pass the *last* exam, and become
"free at last"?
As Alice Miller writes (_The Drama of
the Gifted Child_, _For YOur Own Good_,
_Thou Shalt Not Be Aware_), each generation that
is subjected to "rites of passage", which it
cannot avoid under-going (remember that
the Romans made their vanquished
enemies *go* *under* the yoke...],
finds its catharsis by doing to
the next generation what was done to it.
The "winners" extract their revenge on
the only target they are allowed to attack:
the next generation: "Displacement",
"The return of the repressed", a real
"wheel of karma", etc.
What's so bad about the victims trying to
protect themselves from being hurt? Call
it "cheating", if you want, but I think the
use of that word is itself one piece of psychological
warfare against the victims. What about
"free enterprise" and "individual initiative"?
(When I was in "prep school", I got punished for
lending money at interest to fellow students --
some of the school's trustees were bankers.)
If the student can outwit the testers,
then the testers label what happened as
a "crime", and at least make sure a
mark is made on the student's record so that the
student will never get to college (or whatever) --
He'll go to work instead.
If that doesn't stop the insubordination,
there's always the courts and the police.
The fully human response to an attempt to
impose a test on a student should be for the
student to be able to walk away to another
life situation in which he or she will
not be treated so shabbily, and, in leaving,
to tell the would-be examiners that they
ought to be ashamed of themselves for
such disrespectful behavior: "Who do
you think you are? Mentors? or Tor-Mentors?". Some of
the rich *could* do this, but, alas, most
of them don't (so maybe people are
"equal" in our country after all?).
Call it "cheating" or call it "self-defense".
I prefer the latter.
"Never again!" (Needless to say, I did *not*
have the resources to be able to walk away....)
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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