Cross-Cultural Crash

My students turned in their final papers a few weeks ago. With 130 papers to get through, I got started immediately. I was soon reading information that was written with a style and diction that was beyond their evident ability and expertise. So I started Googling... Plagiarism plagued the research papers. I further discovered that even the papers that appeared as if they were written at the same skill level were copied from blogs and amateur websites. Of all my students, fewer than ten wrote their own paper.

I felt awful. What had gone wrong? I devoted most of the semester's last two months to final paper preparations. At the start, I even discussed the definition of plagiarism, the importance of giving credit to authors and how it is a serious offense in Western universities. An entire lesson was devoted to avoiding it by practicing paraphrasing and reviewing the use of quotations. The criteria sheet I handed out also stated in large, bold print "Purposeful plagiarism will result in a zero for the assignment and possibly a failing grade for this class."

After some online reading and talking with others, I then learned that plagiarism is actually very common, labeled by some as a problem with Chinese academia. Several Chinese professors have plagiarised the works they published in academic journals. Chinese friends informed that even graduate students oftentimes copy their thesis. Some stated that when they turned in papers, they hoped that their professors did not even read them - an idea that my Western perspective blocks me from grasping. Such news caused me to conclude that I was encountering not only lack of effort and sincerity on the part of my students but, moreover, a cultural barrier.

While I consciously did my best to not become angry, it proved difficult. My students are fluent English speaks for whom which a lack of understanding was not the issue. The issue seems to have been the disregard of my expectations and guidelines. However, then I reminded myself - How can I blame them for doing what they have been taught and following the examples of their teachers? Culturally, Chinese are taught that to copy the works of great artists is the best way to improve oneself and eventually become great too. Hence the strong emphasis on studying the Chinese classics in all subjects.

Obviously not going to fail everyone, the final papers couldn't be graded. After much deliberation, I decided to just make the mid-term exams worth a larger percentage of their course grade. I sent an e-mail to all students informing them about the change and expressing my disappointment. Because many of them had mentioned that they want to attend graduate schools in the U.S. or Britain, I reiterated the Western stance on plagiarism and warned that it would cause them to lose all potential for acceptance into any program. After spending a long time on my wording, I hit "Send" and hoped that they would understand I simply cannot issue grades for papers they didn't write. Surprisingly, I only had five or six responses, most of which offered apologies. Interestingly, a few seemed to acknowledge that we were facing a cultural difference, which just made me wonder why these seemingly self-aware students didn't bring such important information to my attention earlier.

One thing is clear - next semester's syllabus will need a lot of adjusting. I am quite certain that I will not be assigning research papers. I can't break down educational and cultural barriers in a four-month term. But I can definitely craft other practical lessons that will benefit them in the future. With that said, I still think that many of my students are incredibly smart and wonderful. Live and learn. Taking all the experience I've gained so far, my goal will be to reconstruct the class to hopefully create a classroom in which both the students and I can appreciate our cultures and engage in valuable learning (& teaching!) - living and learning.