Integrity:June 2013

We live in a greater culture that does not appear to value integrity. We are witness to this lack of integrity when our generals make themselves vulnerable to blackmail and family crises when they have affairs; we witness it when accountants cook the books.  This lack of integrity pours into our school and our classrooms where students plagiarize their papers, lie to parents, teachers and administrators, and are often taught by the mainstream culture and by our responses that it’s sometimes better to lie.  One parent’s advice to his child who was a student last year at our school was the following: should you be busted for something, “Deny, deny, deny,” so you receive the best possible outcome.  The parent is a lawyer. Students this year took this attitude and, yes, they received the best possible outcome: no punishments by the school for transgressions.

The loss of integrity in the parent and student population begins to affect the integrity of our school when the lying is so pervasive that, this past spring, only one child out of 60 or 80 or 100 adults and students told the truth about a party that had alcohol.  The guilty and liars (the “and” term is used mathematically, as “intersection”) along with the innocent (think “union”) faced no concrete immediate consequences; indeed, it is very likely that some of the guilty liars earned major school awards at the end of the year; some of the guilty liars teased the guilty but honest student and called him, “Stupid,” (and worse) for telling the truth and facing the consequences. The lack of integrity bleeds to the administrators who deal harshly with the honest and cannot catch the guilty who lie – the administrators are put in a position where they appear to play favorites or where they are ridiculed behind their backs for not catching the guilty.   I don’t expect there’s an easy solution to this; my statement is not meant to be critical or to suggest that there’s something else that the administrators can do in response to a breach of integrity.

 This past week, while conversing with my two older children, one high-schooler said, “The school's response teaches that grades are more important than integrity.”  My other high-schooler chimed in, “Copying daily math homework is a near-daily task for most students.”   

As a teacher who believes we would ideally teach the whole child, I struggle to find ways to address integrity issues well in a mathematics classroom. I write about integrity in the “intro” page that I present the first day (what I write is included at the end of this report); I remind students of this statement prior to taking a test or at times when there’s a relevant story in the press.  I think many teachers do this. And they do it well. Clearly this is not enough.  But talk before the transgressions and reprimands after the transgressions are futile and not effective.      

In my first years teaching as a just post pubescent college graduate, I strongly believed that we needed to teach what I mistakenly called, “moral education.” This belief was brought about by my college statistics project where I had peers answer questions about cheating. I was appalled at the results (and do not remember them specifically now just that the numbers of cheaters were high.)  As a new teacher, I was attacked on all fronts by seasoned and brilliant and well-meaning colleagues who feared for censure and effects of religious conviction.  I did not have the words or framework to put my concerns into useful language or good ideas and could not adequately respond.

I do not want to stand idly by as I watch these transgressions occur.  However, I am one.  Of many.  I know that one person can have a profound impact (think of a single baby screaming on an airplane packed with 350 passengers), but it seems that we are like the Titanic traveling across the Atlantic: 1.  We are too arrogant to admit that we have weakness [I have colleagues that keep saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Then, following up (choose one of the following):  “Just look at our test scores”… “I’m a great teacher”….”I’ve always done it this way and found success”…]  2.  We are too large and slow and encumbered by policies, standard practices, and bureaucracies to turn on a dime when needed.   3.  We will, however, sink if our integrity continues to be breached.   More importantly, I believe it is important to model and to teach, “doing the right thing.”  What’s the right thing?  Maintaining Honesty, Integrity, Compassion. Living and teaching the value and importance of integrity, hard work, and supporting each other.  I think there are basic tenants to which we all can agree.  Perhaps someone else can come up with better words for these things; I’m no wordsmith and failed miserably in a similar mission twenty-seven years ago.

So, presuming we want our kids to make “good choices” about their behaviors and approaches to academics, what do we do? 

Responding to breaches of integrity is not effective or always possible; cases in point are situations this past year.  If we call the school’s responses to transgressions, “downstream intervention,” we could think about “upstream intervention.”  Upstream intervention would be preventative, but would need to be larger and more meaningful than a talk and a blurb in black and white.

So what would I like to hear from a student?  It would be great to hear a student say with all earnestness to a peer who cheats, “Why would you do that?” as if they are asking why a peer would refuse to accept a gift.  A gift.  Now that’s how I want students to view what they learn in our classrooms. I don’t think that’s currently the case about what students learn in my classroom or about other classrooms.

If our assignments were meaningful, interesting and fun to do, then cheating might not happen. If students felt as if they could do the assignments, then cheating might not happen. If our problem sets were seen as instructive, purposeful and interesting, cheating might not happen. If our students had the time to feel as though they could do the job that they want to do, then cheating might not happen. Perhaps if students had a greater sense of community, a greater sense of emotional attachment to teachers, peers or others who are being deceived by the student to cheats, then the cheating might not happen.  Maybe I’m being idealistic by saying repeatedly, “Cheating might not happen.”  But even in the world of hardened criminals, isn’t there a code of conduct that says, you don’t mess with your mother or someone you respect or someone who has done something nice for you?

I believe we all need to re-think our assignments for students.  Are we giving kids so much work that they don’t have time to complete it all?  Are we asking kids to do assignments that are, quite frankly, over their heads and overwhelm them or that are meaningless to them for whatever reason or assignment that are too simplistic and boring?  Are we developing the kinds of relationships with students that foster mutual respect and a sense of community?  Is our emphasis on learning, understanding, and the joy of academic discourse or is our emphasis on grades?  Are we focusing so much about getting through an increasing amount of curriculum that we lose the ability to do tasks that are memorable and fun and still academic?  I have pockets full of ideas of projects kids at other schools have always thought were “cool,” “memorable,” or simply interesting.  It's deeply troubling to me that in my final ten or so year in education, I have never or rarely been able to pull out those projects from of my pockets because of time constraints, policies, curricular mandates, standardized tests and other bureaucratic ties.

I would like more freedom to teach some of these good ideas. I would like more time to be able to cover some extra topics or to allow students the opportunity of creative problem solving.  Whenever I insert an extra topic or project, the students love it, but I’m stressed and scrambling as I try to cover the other required material to complete the course, or to prepare them for a standardized test.  I find myself feeling that I give up teaching passion for math in favor of covering material for rigor.  Sure, I know we have students who thrive on rigor, but most of our students are not Bertrand Russell; they’d learn more problem solving and love more math if I could teach it differently.

I ask myself the question: What jobs and what kind of life am I preparing my current students to assume in 10 or more years?  Those jobs likely don't exist today (think: 1988's students were the ones who designed web pages, which didn't exist in 1988.)  Twenty-first Century Skills include problem solving, communication, cooperation, evaluation -- many higher order skills that don't enter the recipe for pummeling through current curricular topics. Twenty-first Century Skills include working with integrity (and being able to evaluate the integrity of media consumed), focusing intently beyond 220 characters, organizing information from a variety of sources, and recognizing the difference between opinion and fact, to name a few. 

Thomas Jefferson is known to have said,  "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing," and indeed, "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without a rebellion." Perhaps it is time for a rebellion and a revolution in our current educational system.

The statement belos is from my “intro” sheet given to my math students each fall, during the last twelve of my teaching years, 2009-2021.  (This is written to be read aloud. There are 7 sentences;  7 students each read a sentence.)

Personal Integrity.

There is nothing more important in any person’s life than his or her personal integrity. 

Knowing that you “do the right thing,” and knowing that you live without regrets are invaluable to your successful life experience. 

Many things in your life you won’t have control over, but you will always have control over your personal integrity. 

Having and maintaining high moral standards is a wonderful hallmark for you to carry with you throughout your high school career and is far more important than any grade goal. 

When you graduate, the ending ceremonies and the accolades you receive are only meaningful if you have maintained the standards of integrity that your peers and faculty expect. 

Certainly, when you cheat or otherwise compromise your personal integrity, the school responds with swift and potentially severe consequences.  

The Math Department has prepared a statement on academic integrity.  You are expected to understand every part of this statement.  Should you have any questions about what is or is not cheating, please ask.