In order to understand how helping and cheating come to float, one must know the two learning methods established by Cooper, the cooperative and the competitive. In the cooperative method, students are encouraged to help each other in order to receive good grades. On the other hand, the competitive method provokes an urge in the student that makes him or her wants to be better than the rest.
More than in the competitive method, one can observe in the cooperative method that helping can come off as cheating most of the time. This is due to the extreme help some students provide to others that really haven't studied the material. Currently, I can relate to Jim Cooper's writing because, as a student, I have been a part of the helping as well as the cheating. Many times, when my high-school teachers would give the class a take home exam, a group would meet up and do the test together. In this situation, much of the helping as well as the cheating could be observed. Usually, when someone didn't understand how to solve a problem, another person would explain the procedure, but other times, we would give each other the answers in order to save up time.
We Puerto Ricans have an innate desire to help anyone who is in need, but we must face that there are moments when help can can come off as cheating and, in reality, we are not helping the person. Because of this reason, we must be aware of the slight difference between helping and cheating.
Nice job. Do you realize that the "fine line" does not seem so fine to Cooper? Since his internal ethics code marks a separation between "right"and "wrong," he saw that helping behavior as clearly wrong. His model explains what he considers a cultural difference between "continentals"and Puerto Ricans.
ReplyDeleteI do see that Puerto Ricans help each other a lot in every aspect of life, but I don´t think that we do it more than any other culture, like Cooper said.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Professor Pittmann. Jim Cooper establishes the difference between helping and cheating and takes a position for each case. He considers helping as cheating, based on his culture. Cooper searches another way to make the English course one that would actually teach the students English.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Professor Pittmann and Sylvette, He establishes the difference and defends both position, right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteI think that this "line" really highlights the cultural difference between these two places. To him, it was very clear but to Puerto Rican students, since they were so accustomed to it, seemed very unclear and almost non-existent.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between helping and cheating it is established. The difference between realities is a huge factor for the misunderstanding between Cooper and the students.
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