Subject/Object

Patrick Ross over at IP Central has told us a little story about how the computer killed the book-learning star

A few months ago my 11-year-old daughter was researching a paper on Jesse Owens for social studies. She didn’t go to the library, pull down reference books and fill up 3×5 index cards. She went onto Google. She found plenty of materials. But when I asked to read her completed paper, it was nothing but a cut-and-paste job from various web sites on Owens; she even included, quite randomly, part of a press release about some recent celebration in his honor. My daughter’s work ethic may not always be what I’d like it to be, but she’s bright and can write more than sufficiently for a 5th grade social studies class. Yet she seemed flat-out baffled when I explained to her that the paper wasn’t acceptable. “Is the information wrong?” she asked. “Did I leave something out?” No to both. But she hadn’t written her own paper, and more importantly, she hadn’t learned anything, as was clear when I began to quiz her about the content in her own “paper.” Hard to transfer knowledge in the two seconds it takes to select and move.

Could it be that his daughter has bad teachers? Maybe our education system has going to produce little worker drones opposed to men and women who can write properly?

When my daughter thinks of the library, it’s a place where she and her brother used to check out picture books and now check out chapter books. It’s not a place of research. That lack of appreciation falls on my shoulders. I need to do a better job as a parent of explaining that while the Internet can be a powerful research tool, it’s meant to assist one in doing one’s own learning, not just as a source to parrot somebody else’s words.

This is nothing different then what we all do as children. I distinctly remember totally ripping off the text book and any other book I could find when I was elementary school. I am glad that Ross is the kind of father who would looking into his children’s work, and the stray time that my father caught me cutting corners and doing a substandard job, knew to start ducking (metaphorically most of the time).

This is the way we all begin to think. Now, hopefully, we can learn that putting one’s own thoughts together is not only the proper thing to do, but can actually be enjoyable. But it is not the fault of the internet: I’m almost sure that if we found student notes from the literate class of any time or location, we could find the same kind of hack job.

Nicholas Carr: “The issue isn’t plagiarism. The issue is the meaning of “understanding” and how it’s changing.”

Andrew Keen: “”We have created technology that is encouraging a culture of intellectual kleptocracy and all anyone wants to talk about is rights.”

Please. There is nothing about digital culture which praises plagiarism. The best written blogs do engage in dialogue by quoting others, but at the same time we praise them for their original contribution. Despite Wikipedia, the author is still alive and kicking–just look at the ego-filled talk pages. The aesthetic beauty of Open Source software is not just in the copying, but in the original contribution made by each modifier. The cut in paste culture is more appropriately the “remix” culture, because it praises highly the derivative work. One of the hallmarks of the copyfight itself is its emphasis on cultures essential connection to derivation.

Hopefully Patrick Ross’s daughter has learned her lesson. Hopefully we can bring the education system to a point where we can teach children to take pride in their original creations (and digital technology makes that dead easy). But don’t fault the Internet or “Web 2.0″ for the fact that these Fifth Graders are students and we have to look at them as unfinished in their development.

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