Language and Society

Written in 1892 by Baptist minister and Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy and first published  in the popular children’s magazine The Youth’s Companion to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus Day, and then adopted in public schools as part of the year’s Columbus Day observance, the original pledge, recited while standing at salute with arm extended toward the flag, was thus . . .

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”  

Words ( for example, “. . . of America” . . . . “under God” . . .) have subsequently been added, and the so-called “Bellamy salute” was dropped in 1942 after we entered to war against the Germans, as the symbolism was too close for comfort . . .

When students from Edgerton High School’s Spanish class recited the Pledge of Allegiance over the school’s intercom, at least one parent, recently retired from the National Guard,  was angry enough to complain to school officials, arguing “I believe the troops based this country off the old American values and not the Spanish values” (GazetteExtra.com, Thursday, March 13, 2008).  The editors at the Janesville Gazette have dedicated this week’s opinion poll to discovering community opinion on the issue: “Is it disrespectful to say the Pledge of Allegiance in a language other than English?”  As I am writing this essay, 67% of the readers responding agree that the pledge should only be done in English.

This topic strikes a chord for a variety of reasons, ranging from the debate over illegal immigrants, to job and salary protection, to the maintenance of a strong national identity. One cleavage issue concerns whether or not we believe that our country’s diversity is a positive or negative thing.  For those people wary of diversity, a popular argument is that as an American we should do things the way the majority does.  What we have in common is what unites us, and where we differ, we can look to the majority for the broadest sense of common ground.  At the level of policy, it follows that since the majority of this country speaks English, we should express our oaths of allegiance in this language.

As a linguist, I can understand this argument: language is a lot more than an instrument of communication; it is primarily the means through which we express our identity. So there is an interesting tension that results from Latino identity (expressed by using Spanish) laying claim to national allegiance.  At the same time I am very uncomfortable with a line of argument that seems universally objectionable as we consider its further applications, for if “we should do things the way the majority does,” does that mean that, since a majority of Americans identify themselves as Protestant Christians, it is un-American to be Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish, or Catholic? Does it mean that it is un-American to be Republican, given that there are more registered Democrats? Or does it mean that we should be suspicious of men, since women are in the (slight) numerical majority because of their relative longevity in relation to men? Does it mean that as we move away from the average IQ of 100, whether in a negative or positive direction, we are moving into enemy territory?  Traitors if we are too stupid or too smart?

I think that you will agree that the argument for majority rule can look pretty silly.  Many people think that America is relatively stable because of its relative linguistic homogeneity.  On the other hand, you have to look some before you find countries which have more ethnic, racial, religious, class, and economic diversity than the United States.  It is quite a big coincidence if our various successes have occurred entirely in spite of this diversity.

Photo at top: barracks at Auschwitz, where the “different people” were gathered before the ovens.

“Prišla som, videla som, nechápem, odchádzam.” (I came, I saw, I don’t understand, I’m leaving . . .)

Recently, I found out that the university is considering adding a foreign language requirement for all UW-W students seeking a Bachelor of Arts degree: regardless of high school experience, at least two years of foreign language courses at the university. Though there are many institutional-internal reasons behind this movement, on a broader  dimension of what it takes to be a good global citizen,  there is the perception that American university students lack for foreign language skills.

As the world’s only superpower, the United States has its hands in every economy and culture around the globe.  In Europe, though only the United Kingdom and Ireland are English speaking countries, close to 50% of all business deals are brokered in English (Bryson 182).

When my brother, who lives in Dallas and works for the All-American  corporation  JCPenny, nevertheless must go to China, or India or Germany, to work on marketing products, his interpreters are native Chinese, Indian, and German.  The lynchpin of international communication, the person who makes the connection between nations, is more than likely to not be a native speaker of English, not an American.  And if language begets understanding, what does it say when so many foreigners know our language while we remain ignorant of theirs?

Rivaling America’s superpower status is the low regard so many other countries have for our nation.  A November 2006 opinion poll conducted by the British newspaper The Guardian found that President Bush was regarded as nearly the most dangerous person in the world, more dangerous than everyone except Bin-Laden, this coming from our closest ally in the world (Glover).   

So that leaves me wondering if you, the professional class in training,  think there is a fundamental responsibility for US professionals trained in the humanities and arts-the communicators, the cultural vanguard–to have some foreign language skills.  Here we are in the middle of a presidential campaign where candidates from both parties are expounding on American values and goals, yet I haven’t heard anyone talking about the importance of being a good neighbor in the community of nations.  Is not the essential, core ingredient in moving down that road to be able to talk to at least one of our “neighbors” in their own language?  I just finished spending a year in Slovakia, in central Europe. Of all the people I met that had native-like fluency in both English and Slovak, none were native born Americans . . . . including all the embassy personnel I met . . . . . including the US Ambassador. Can any of these people fully appreciate the limitations (and appearance of arrogance) of  having to conduct all international business in (on?) our terms?

As it stands, the BS at UW-W requires additional math and lab sciences, the BA has a foreign language requirement that can be entirely discharged by retro credits from high school work on the college prep track.  There is also an acknowledged (extreme) deficiency in international experience among our students (last time I checked, UW-Eau Claire had something like 17% of its students having some international education; whereas our percentage was less than 1%).  More foreign language classes would in all probably increase interest in study abroad programs.

Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way. New York:  Avon. 1990.

Glover, Julian. “British Believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il.” The Guardian Limited. 3 Nov 2006. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1938434,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1938434,00.html>

Pan profesor and one of his Slovak students, Elena Fainová  

One of the features of my job as a university professor is that I am always in an environment of young people: my classes are populated mostly by teenagers and twenty-somethings, and throughout the campus community, whether in the dining halls, library, department workroom, bookstore, or computer labs, UW-W students are at the counters.  One of my favorite places to go on campus is the Williams-Katchel fitness complex.  I have a year’s membership and work out in the spacious, well-appointed weight room nearly every day.   Every time I arrive, hand over my faculty ID to a student at the counter, who then files it away.  My customary encounter when I finish my work out and need to retrieve my ID card is to approach the desk . . .

Me: “Hi!”

Student: (Looks at me in anticipation, though without any verbal response)

Me: “Lencho” . . . . with an “L” . . . .  L-E-N-C-H-O . . . 

Student: (Finds my ID card in the card file and hands it to me)

Me: “Thanks, you have a nice day.”

Student (optionally): “You too.”

There is something mildly disconcerting to me about this exchange, as it seems that it is hard for the student to actually play a verbal role in the conversation.   Although some of my colleagues think that students on our campus and across the nation are increasingly disrespectful and rude, I am reluctant to agree, and am more inclined to think that there is a linguistic explanation for this behavior:  in English, we have no simple grammatical program to allow different social classes to interact.   Like many European languages, Slovak has “T” forms and “V” forms, corresponding to when speakers are talking within their social network (= “T” form) or across the social divide (= “V” form).  Customarily, these distinctions are said to reflect the hierarchical relationship between speaker and audience, but my experience with American students makes me wonder if the honorific distinction in other languages not only instructs the nature of hierarchical conversation, but also in some crucial manner actually encourages it to take place. 

My Slovak students could pop their heads into my office with the engaging yet deferential . . .

Slovak: “Dobrý deň, pan profesor, môžem vas vyrušovať?”

English: “Excuse me, sir, but may I disturb you for a second?”

Deference in English is not obligatorily displayed throughout the inflectional system of the language, as it is in Slovak (in the passage above, “vas” would be expressed “ta” in a conversation of “in-group” participants).  Instead, English requires  the use of titles and various rhetorical devices, leaving  an obsequious, groveling aftertaste that young people in the land where “all men are created equal” just naturally avoid.  In Slovak, class distinction is simply registered as it must simply to establish the full speaking context; there is nothing intentional or designing about it, hence no self-diminishing overtones.

Risking a certain amount of overstatement, Americans seem to live without role models or a sense of history.  This here-and-know, nobody-is-any-better-than-me, “zen” aspect of the American sensibility may have something to do with American can-do spirit, a sense of limitless possibilities, of personal innocence leading to a sense of entitlement.  However, knowing your place, and having a language which can readily express it in every act of communication is no small thing. There is an element of . . . . if not friendliness, maybe something akin to connectedness . . . that allows Slovaks across the age divide to talk to one another naturally, in fact, spurring them on to do so, and in the process, nurturing a kind of social involvement that I can only envy as a “Slovak living abroad.”

Although it is springtime, a time of birth and regeneration, for those of us who go to school it is also the time of endings: we are finishing our courses, and for many of us that means finishing the relationships we have begun to establish with each other throughout the semester.

This last week I have already begun shifting out of the role of the teller, having more of a chance to play the role of the audience–for many of you as you have presented skits and powerpoint presentations, and for Allan Stevo, who came up from Bratislava to Nitra to read from his poetry on being caught between the Slovak culture of his new life and the American culture of his upbringing.

What the pragmatics of discourse has to tell us is that the audience is quite an important partner in shaping the communication. When Allen read . . .

I am a native American,
Born in Blue Island, Illinois.
Is there any place more
American than that?*

I could only smile, not just because of the quirk of fate that both of us were born in the same hospital only to travel to the other side of the Earth to Nitra, Slovakia, to express this rootedness, but also because how loaded this message is for me. The teacher in me wonders, do my students understand that “native American” is a term that we fight over in America, a term reserved in some circles for people who ‘less enculturated’ people refer to as American “Indians?” The significance of the term is that it represents a claim to original ownership. The real, original owners of America . . . we can designate them the original inhabitants. Another significance is that it is a term used by self-described non-Native Americans . . . the same people that use expressions like ‘people of color,’ the same people who like to think of themselves as the standard bearers of cultural sensitivity. “Native Americans,” by the way, refer to themselves as “Indians.”

But America is a country of immigrants. Allan asks if there is any more American place than Blue Island, nearly smack dab in the geographic heart of the heart of North America, outside of Chicago, Illinois. It is not an innocent question. You see, Allan and I know that Blue Island is a city of newcomers and a city in flux, a struggling, basically working class city in economic decline, about 1/3 white, almost entirely immigrants from central and eastern Europe of early last century (including a small Slovak community), 1/3 citizens of African descent, almost all of whom have settled in Blue Island over the past 40 years, and 1/3 Hispanic, the majority of which, Allan tells me, are probably undocumented (non-citizen, non-English speaking).

Is there any city more American than Blue Island? Well, it depends on how we define “American.” Some of us grew up being taught that America was the great refuge for the dispossessed and persecuted around the world: Give us your huddled masses! America the melting pot! Such a viewpoint cuts against any irony a knower of Blue Island might feel upon being asked to consider Blue Island as the most American of cities.

But when you’re Slovak and you’re living in Slovakia, and you hear in Slovak . .

Ja som rodený Američan
Narodený na Blue Island v Illinois.
Existuje nejaké iné,
Viac americké miesto ako toto?

The question in the poem becomes rhetorical. . . . “Blue Island” is the most American of cities. How could we think of an even more American place . . . if all that you know about Blue Island is what the poem tells you?

In the Slovak version, being born somewhere makes them native: “Ja som rodený Američan/Narodený na Blue Island v Illinois.” Funny, if that were enough, then my little Žofka would be ‘rodená Slovenka.’

Allan’s book is available for purchase at Pod Vrškom. Your comments on his work, the public presentations of your colleagues, and your experience in our course would be a most appreciated and fitting conclusion to this final posting of mine. My hope is that all of you will have a storybook ending . . . a happy conclusion.

Majte sa krasne . . . a do videnia. And if you ever get to America, look me up: I’d love to show you around Blue Island!

*excerpted from “No one ever says anti-abortion” in Somewhere Between Bratislava and DC (Stevo 2006).

Dve Slovenke

“ . . . with so much aggression on display [in Slovakia], why does it rarely spill over into violence of the kind that blights America? . . . .

[I]t’s . . . likely to be the ‘babka factor’—deep-rooted standards of conduct—that is keeping people in line in this country. Those bent, wide-elbowed figures with their shopping bags are a repository of proper behavior from a more civilized time. They may not be able to stop their grandchildren from buying guns, but they will be damned if they let them take them to school.”

–Tom Nicholson, The Slovak Spectator Vol 13, No. 16 23-29 April 2007

Nicholson’s article, from which I’ve excerpted, gives a reason why we have not seen massacres in Slovakia like those which periodically occur in the US: it is a cultural difference he ascribes to (steadily disappearing) politeness. It’s something that you have to look harder and harder for these days, but its existence is unmistakable in the person and behavior of old Slovak women.

Here are some examples of the ‘deep-rooted standard of conduct’ old Slovak women have shown my wife, my daughter and me: We have three neighbors on our floor where we live. Two of them are eighty year-old widows living alone. They look after us constantly: kolači over Christmas, Easter, Name Days; books to understand Slovakia, books to pick out a name for our child; bottled water when the main water pipe for the apartment complex broke down; long, halting Slovak conversations whenever we meet in the hallway, regardless of whether my wife or I can understand—in which, despite our lack of proficiency, we were able to find out that we had a habit of underdressing our daughter, holding her rather too vertically, walking her about town with the wrong equipment, and letting her head bob rather too much . . .

These old women are overflowing with concern . . . . which, however inconvenient it is for us to listen to sometimes as we busily run from one errand to the next, ultimately constitutes an expression of consideration, and its effect on us is to make us feel a little less disconnected.

And maybe this is the key: when we convince ourselves that we are totally disconnected we are capable of doing anything, including apparently gunning down strangers in cold blood. It seems that the South Korean national who grew up in the US and who spent four years at a fine school–Cho Seung-Hui—never had a conversation with anyone. In all the post massacre media coverage, the networks could find no one, even dormitory mates, who remembered him saying anything.

If politeness is a topic deserving our steady attention and academic labors, it has to be because politeness is the mechanism of social connectedness. Scholars debate what politeness means . . . maybe we should take it to mean that which makes us more connected. Thank you, you old Slovak woman who hectored two young Slovak schoolgirls to give up their seat on a bus so my pregnant wife could sit down. . . even if they gave you a dirty look for your nagging and even if my wife really didn’t want to sit down . . . thank you for your consideration. It will stick with us.

Could it be that Nicholson is right, that old Slovak women really are more civilized?

For me and my family, Easter holidays were celebrated with relatives in Žilina. Admidst all the whipping and splashing, no one was to find out that it was also my birthday: I wished to keep that under wraps, for a variety of reasons, but maybe most importantly, out of a (polite?) instinct that I did not wish to draw any attention to myself, and I did not want my relatives running around buying me presents, in addition to hosting our family.

Unfortunately for me and my secret, my relatives have a big print of a painting on their living room wall showing our family tree, along with birthdates. And conversation the first evening just naturally gravitated to the family tree, and after a little inspection on their part, the jig was up . . . they were reminded of my birthday.

So I woke up the following morning to a little birthday package . . . a picture book of Slovak places of interest, and a T-Shirt with a very interesting message:

Prišiel som
Videl som
Nechápem
Odchádzam

So here is my quandary: it was certainly nice to get a gift (helping to bolster my “positive face”), but the message was, while right-on-the-mark appropriate in my case, not exactly something a Roman emperor would say (could it even be a face threatening act??). However, the present was offered in a spirit of hilarity and good humor, with everyone laughing and offering “na zdravie’s” (redressing a FTA?), so even if the humor was at my expense, we were among friends and family, so maybe I should view the message as a “solidarity strategy” where a little bit of abuse is meant to emphasize social closeness (Yule 64).

Question: Was the gift an example of politeness?

I should say that I have been wearing the shirt nearly every day since, not without some sense of pride mixed with humility, self-irony and well-being. It seems not only to strike to the heart of my predicament with my beloved Slovak (I have worked so hard, and yet know so little), but it also seems to rise up almost to the level of lifetime credo. I envision the gravestone marking my final resting place . . . .

I came
I saw
I never understood
I left

Everything was fine, and then I ran into one of my fellow American sojourners here, young Katie from my hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin (she is in high school here in Nitra for a year as a Rotary exchange student), she looked at me and rather dryly wondered out loud how I had the courage to wear a shirt that made me look stupid.

Well, I heard
I pondered
I can’t make up my mind . . .
So I’m asking you . . .

What do you think?

References:

Yule, G (1996) Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.

You may know that the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution guarantees all citizens of the US that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . .” That is, Americans like to say that there are some universal rights that no one may transgress, such as our ‘freedom of speech.’ Though our actions may be limited according to strict rules and regulations (murder someone and you may have to put up with considerable inconvenience), we have the right to say anything anywhere, or so many Americans think. In the US, there is a legal distinction between speech and action: from early childhood we learn: “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” That is, action has heft and substance; words are, well, as empty as thin air.

I imagine that Slovaks may find speech a little more consequential. After all, before regime change 17 years ago, I am told that you would need to be on continual alert regarding what you said, that saying the wrong things in public, or to be overheard by “udavač” saying the wrong things even in your most private conversations, could lead to prison or worse.

In this light, it is interesting to consider the contributions of Speech Act Theory. The fundamental principle is this: speech is action; through speech we continually shape, influence, and change the world. It may certainly hurt to get hit with a stick, but it is difficult to imagine something more hurtful than, for instance, the proclamation, in the appropriate circumstances, “We find you guilty!” or “You’re fired!” . . . or something more life changing than “I do!” or “I now pronounce you husband and wife” or “I hereby take Jesus Christ as my personal saviour.” A stick to the head can leave a red mark, but so can the curse “You fucking bastard!” leave us red in the face and sick to our stomach.

I happen to like coming from a country that guarantees the freedom of speech in its most sacred documents, yet I know I can’t shout “Fire” in a crowded theater, advocate in the newspaper for the assassination of our public officials, or perjure myself in a court of law. And, furthermore, I realize that these situations aren’t special; they’re the norm, in the sense that whenever we say something we are committing an action, that actions have consequences, and that often serious matters hang in the balance. In the end, we in the US have a complex and not at all consistent attitude about the relationship of speech and action. How does that compare to Slovakia?

As we have already discussed, initiating encounters in an American context tend to be more broadly involving than in a Slovak context, while departures in the two cultures are inversely related (Slovaks have good-bye rituals where they are absent in English-speaking settings). Between an initiation and a closure, discourse can be structured around a series of turns, each containing its own beginning and end point. Differences in initiation strategies between Slovak and American speakers can reverberate across a larger more complex discourse, as revealed in classroom interaction between an American teacher and students in a Slovak university.

How is it that we take turns? In an American university setting, the common understanding is that there is an unstated invitation to take a turn . . . that class activities transpire in the form of dialogue. The default reaction to interruption is that it represents buy-in to the communication. Silence is also seen as a cue to participate. Overt questions coming from the teacher are tricky in this context . . . in an ideal dialogue (as opposed to an interrogation), participants extend questions regarding things they do not know but anticipate that audience knows. This is one reason why I am always asking for applications to Slovak. I look forward to your responses as expert information in an area that I am very interested in, but where I know little. It also provides an excellent opportunity to make applications of theoretical principles and terminology. In an ideal dialogue there are multiple sources of direction. This is a momentum-gathering phenomenon, isn’t it? Don’t you feel more inclined to take a turn when there are many students taking turns?

Technological support often can be used to underscore the essential dialogic nature of the teacher-student relationship. Our blog space, for instance, prompts for commentary; I get the first word, usually, but really I recognize that I am not the most important participant, as your commentary always makes up the bulk of every week’s dialogue. The e-mail channel through which contributions are made give further structured opportunities for dialogue. Skyping always involves turn-taking, and unlike our e-mails, it is typically the case that students initiate the dialogue in Skype. Similarly, the wiki space provides a format for interactive, group productions.

What are the specific things that prompt you to take a turn? And how “real” is that turn? That is, what distinguishes between honest participation and just going through the motions? How important is it for me to take the first turn in the week’s proceedings? What if we started class next week with it your turn? That is, I come to class looking forward to a cue to take the first turn, and not assuming that I am to fulfill this role myself? What if our class was organized like Tesco, so that my first appearance was at the back of the line of interactions, rather than at the front?

Reading in between the lines, I feel your postings last week on ťaháky reveal some interesting extended „Conversations“ on such things as the nature of the student-teacher relationship, individual responsibility and socialism, and the state of education in Slovakia. Underlying your comments, I detected a „Discourse model“ at play that I have begun to notice and get accustomed to here in Slovakia; I will call it the „Grass is greener on the other side of the fence“ model: People in Slovakia seem to have a keen interest in how things are done elsewhere, and have the attitude that much can be learned from examining those comparisons. Thus, writers made comparisons to Denmark, Scandanavian countries, the UK and the US all with the intention of suggesting some corrective measure that could be used here in Slovakia.

The reason why this way of thinking was at first surprising may come from the fact that I am an American, and in my country there seems to be, as one writer recently referred to it*, a „myth of enviability“. That is, Americans think that other people around the world want to be like us, live like we do, have what we have, and, ideally, move next door to us.

This model has many manifestations. As a Fulbright scholar, one of the most important things I have been asked to do is to strive to help out my host country. Frequently my conversations with other American teachers and scholars in the Fulbright program center around how we can make our jobs more like the ones we have back home, with the assumption that this is how we could be most helpful.

This model meshes quite interestingly with the Slovak ‚grass is greener‘ model, as on more than one occasion important people in Slovakia (a majoral candidate, a Vice-Rector, a store owner/operator) have worked to arrange meetings with me so that I could help them understand how things (running a city, a private enterprise, a university) are done in the US . . . so that some of these ideas may be incorporated here.

As gratifying as these conversations can be, there are some interesting limitations. Under these circumstances it seems to cut across the grain for me to criticize things that I feel are bad about the American lifestyle with its focus on consumption, material well-being, self-gratification, competition and specialization . . . the cult of the expert. . . . at the expense of spiritual and aesthetic nourishment, a sense of community and a shared history and future, and an overarching inter-dependence. Likewise, maybe these two models, coming together as they do, make is hard for Slovaks to advance their own point of view, at variance with any international one, unique to Slovakia, and important for that very reason. That is, if you have as a working model the idea that „the grass is greener“ on my side of the fence, then what motivation do you have to solve my problems and to find things that are both valuable and life-enriching on your side of the fence? That is, what motivation do you have to unveil your own hidden treasures for all the world to see?

* Tom Nicholson „Tiso myth appalling and dangerous“ in Spex: Slovakia’s Monthly English Magazine p. 3.

„Vezmi si do rúk jednu paličku a prelom ju. Teraz s vezmi dve a skús ich prelomiť. Nakoniec skús prelomiť naraz tri paličky. Su také pevné, že sa ti to nepodarí. Vidiš? Jedna palička je slabí, ale ked sú tri spolu, sú silné. Nikdy nezabudni spolupracovať s priatelmi!“*

There recently appeared an article in the Slovak Daily SME titled Ťahákom sa u nás stále darí. ( ‘Crib notes are still with us’; 12.2.2007, Weekend section). The thrust of the article is that Slovak students používaju ťaháky (cheat on examinations, e.g., by using crib notes) more than students in other countries. But what does it really mean that Slovak students cheat more than other students? According to the article, to cheat, students do one of two things when they are working on a problem: i) they communicate with their classmates, or ii) they consult notes or other reference material they have brought with them.

Now from a certain standpoint it may not seem like such a problem that students collaborate, prepare notes, and consult reference material to gain information to solve problems. In fact, the research and collaboration model has been put foward in some circles as one of the major goals of education. So why are notes and classroom discussion viewed as a problem in a Slovak context? Doesn’t it boil down to the bare fact of the teacher’s interest in not wanting it to happen? Such reluctance might reflect a culture of assessment in which it is most likely that exam questions ask students to repeat information that they have been assigned. If tests simply are an indication of the students’ ability to replicate what has been lectured or assigned to them, then allowing students to consult one another and their notes would reduce the exam situation to an exercise in stenography. Such exams test primarily the students capacity to memorize. But in a computerized world where information is ever more readily available, is it really important to test a student’s store of information? The human memory is a relatively weak and unreliable tool in comparision to today’s information technology. If we move from a content-oriented pedagogy, to one that prizes above all skills and proficiencies, then it is not the amassing of information that is the ultimate goal of education, but rather the nurturing of an ability and disposition to access and make the best use of information.. Now if examinations tested thinking skills, then crib notes could serve as an enhancement that would permit the teacher to test higher order thinking skills, make more challenging questions, and get more interesting results. This uncovers another assumption about exam taking where “cheating” can occur, and that is that these exams are meant in part to probe students’ limitations–exams as instruments of diagnosis. Alternatively, examinations might be viewed as a learning tool, constituting a very special situation in which students are highly motivated (especially in high-stakes exit and entrance exams) to use all the resources available to create the best result.

And what about students relying on their classmates to solve their problems? This is only a problem if the students are working on the same problem. So if students have their own distinctive set of problems, which ask them to employ logical methods to infer or extrapolate results framed with appropriate qualifications, then any collaboration would be subordinate to the individual agendas of each of the collaborators, again a desirable result if the intention is to create a learning-rich environment leading to the highest quality outcomes.

How to stop cheating? One answer is to have the teachers and institutions build towards a different type of test, one which relates students with other students and teachers as partners working to maximize the quality of product of everyone’s efforts, not as potential adversaries.

Quoted from the column „Masahikovými očami” in the Weekend Edition of SME 24.2.07. The English translation is as follows: “Take in your hand a single stick and break it. Now take two and try to break them. Finally try to break three sticks at once. They are so strong, that you are not able. Do you see? One stick is weak, but when there are three together, they are strong. Never forget to work with your friends!” The picture appearing in this blog is taken from the SME article on cheating in schools.