Just thinkin' about things
Wednesday, August 28, 2002Some editors and columnists, like Paul McNamara at Network World, do read my email. Maybe I don't need a blog after all.
What if you plagiarize an ethics assignment?
This morning the Orlando Sentinel reported that studying ethics is on the rise, thanks to the recent corporate scandals. I'm not sure how much good studying will do, though. It seems that would be like trying to become a concert pianist by taking a music appreciation course.
The Katz School of Management at the University of Pittsburgh has the best idea. It is considering cutting its ethics class and integrating the subject into other classes, such as accounting.
If that means they're going to quit talking about it a lot in one course and start talking about it a little in a bunch of courses, I'm not sure I see the advantage. But if it means they're going to make ethics part of how those other courses are run, that could work. You can read about ethics, study ethics and discuss ethics, but you won't really be ethical until you practice, practice, practice.
Forty-some years ago I screwed up and told my fourth grade teacher something that was not exactly true. When she found out, I had to write 'I will not tell a lie' one hundred times and get it signed by my mother. I learned a lot about ethics that day.
Last spring, when students at Piper High School, near Kansas City, KS, turned in their biology projects, some of them aroused the teacher's suspicions. After a thorough examination, with help from the principal and an online checking service, she gathered convincing evidence that twenty-eight of them had plagiarized other work. The zeros she gave them didn't last long, though. Some of the parents raised hell with the school board, which overruled the teacher, having her raise the scores and reduce the weight given the project. Those parents and board members taught their children something about ethics. I wonder if any Enron executives came from Piper.