[jedberg]

Both questions were answered in the article. The reason for precise directions is because otherwise people will complain, and if you ignore their complaints, they will complain to your boss. At the end you'll win, but you'll waste a bunch of time defending yourself.

The reason for not allowing cheating is repetitional. If you get a reputation for allowing cheaters, then all the cheaters will want to take your class, and eventually you'll have so many that your testing will be worthless. And if word gets out that your institution allows cheating, then your students will not be respected when they leave, causing harm to the non-cheaters and your chance at keeping your job as fewer people want to attend a school known for allowing cheats.

[light_hue_1]

There's a deeper reason for not allowing cheating: you are building cheaters. People who cheat in courses will cheat in industry, why wouldn't they? They normalize this behavior. So you end up with major corporations that steal, politicians that lie, etc.

If for example, Harvard and Yale's law schools stopped rampant cheating. Maybe so many of their graduates wouldn't go on to routinely lie to the public?

I don't teach because it's some sort of penance that I need to pay. I teach because I like it and I want to help build smart humans. Not contribute to our society degenerating.

[agentdrtran]

I would be willing to bet that most of the politicians/ceos/etc that currently lie to everyone's face and went to harvard/yale didn't need to cheat their way through and didn't bother more often than not.

[light_hue_1]

You would lose your bet. Let's just say that I know what I'm talking about first hand and I'm not making a conjecture.

[agentdrtran]

just out of curiosity, did they cheat more than the average cheater? I knew a few of people who cheated in college but it was infrequent and varied by class, friend group, etc.

[shkkmo]

> The reason for precise directions is because otherwise people will complain, and if you ignore their complaints, they will complain to your boss. At the end you'll win, but you'll waste a bunch of time defending yourself.

So instead you force all your students to do busy work, like signing a statement accepting no grade if they use the wrong size bread board or photographing the breadboard next to a compass to prove it's the alignment?

To me this sounds like lazy teachers punishing students rather than working to solve the problem.

[sanderjd]

Sorry I wasn't clear, I saw and understood the explanations in the article, I just find them weak.