[OT] Supporting homework (was: Re: Checking a Number for Palindromic Behavior)
Steven D'Aprano ste...@remove.this.cybersource.com.au writes on 20 Oct 2009 05:35:18 GMT: As far as I'm concerned, asking for help on homework without being honest up-front about it and making an effort first, is cheating by breaking the social contract. Anyone who rewards cheaters by giving them the answer they want is part of the problem. Whether cheaters prosper in the long run or not, they make life more difficult for the rest of us, and should be discouraged. A few days ago, I have read an impressive book: Albert Jacquard: Mon utopie. The author has been a university professor (among others for population genectics, a discipline between mathematics and biologie). One of the corner therories in his book: mankind has reached the current level of development not mainly due to exceptional work by individuals but by the high level of cooperation between individuals. In this view, asking for help (i.e. seeking communication/cooperation) with individual tasks should probably be highly encouraged not discouraged. At least, it is highly doubtful that the paradigm each for himself, the most ruthless wins will be adequate for the huge problems mankind will face in the near future (defeating hunger, preventing drastic climate changes, natural resources exhaustion, ); intensive cooperation seems to be necessary. Dieter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Supporting homework (was: Re: Checking a Number for Palindromic Behavior)
On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Dieter Maurer die...@handshake.de wrote: Steven D'Aprano ste...@remove.this.cybersource.com.au writes on 20 Oct 2009 05:35:18 GMT: As far as I'm concerned, asking for help on homework without being honest up-front about it and making an effort first, is cheating by breaking the social contract. Anyone who rewards cheaters by giving them the answer they want is part of the problem. Whether cheaters prosper in the long run or not, they make life more difficult for the rest of us, and should be discouraged. A few days ago, I have read an impressive book: Albert Jacquard: Mon utopie. The author has been a university professor (among others for population genectics, a discipline between mathematics and biologie). One of the corner therories in his book: mankind has reached the current level of development not mainly due to exceptional work by individuals but by the high level of cooperation between individuals. In this view, asking for help (i.e. seeking communication/cooperation) with individual tasks should probably be highly encouraged not discouraged. At least, it is highly doubtful that the paradigm each for himself, the most ruthless wins will be adequate for the huge problems mankind will face in the near future (defeating hunger, preventing drastic climate changes, natural resources exhaustion, ); intensive cooperation seems to be necessary. It's not that people aren't willing to assist others in questions that are homework, but when those with homework come to the community to seek the answers without showing that they are trying to achieve that answer on their own. The student must learn to think through a problem and find a solution. There's a distinct difference between one student coming to the community and saying, How do I do X?, and another coming and saying, I am trying to do X, and I have attempted Y and Z. This is not working, can you explain why? In the former, the student is simply asking for an answer to the question they have been tasked with answering. This is unethical. The student is not seeking help to find a solution to a problem, but seeking the solution itself. In the latter, the student clearly articulates they have a problem and shows their attempt at discovering a solution-- and they are asking questions which are not simply 'Tell me the answer' but 'Tell me what I do not understand'. The former is an example of a lazy mind seeking solution; the latter is an example of a curious mind seeking understanding. IMHO and in my experience, the community is more then willing to support the curious-- be they student, hobbyist, or professional. But the lazy student who tries to use the community to get an answer without ever really understanding the problem... that's something else entirely. In my experience, the Python community is very willing to support and encourage those questioning and seeking the advice of others to find good and workable solutions. Every once in awhile, someone comes to the community with a question which doesn't really seek to expand their understanding but instead seeks to bypass the need to understand-- they seek simple answers to questions posed to them without any need of them learning the necessary lessons. That's cheating. The community isn't here to do the work for anyone. Its here to share its collective expertise, wisdom and knowledge in order to enrich everyone's experience. We aren't here to do anyone elses work for them. We're here to share and grow together. Anyone who shows an interest in putting effort into a task tends to get helped-- but if someone wants to just sit around and be handed the solution, why should we bother? IMHO, the community doesn't object to those asking for help. It objects to those asking for others to do their work for them. IMHO. Did I mention IMHO? :) --S -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Supporting homework (was: Re: Checking a Number for Palindromic Behavior)
On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 7:04 AM, Dieter Maurer die...@handshake.de wrote: Steven D'Aprano ste...@remove.this.cybersource.com.au writes on 20 Oct 2009 05:35:18 GMT: As far as I'm concerned, asking for help on homework without being honest up-front about it and making an effort first, is cheating by breaking the social contract. Anyone who rewards cheaters by giving them the answer they want is part of the problem. Whether cheaters prosper in the long run or not, they make life more difficult for the rest of us, and should be discouraged. A few days ago, I have read an impressive book: Albert Jacquard: Mon utopie. The author has been a university professor (among others for population genectics, a discipline between mathematics and biologie). One of the corner therories in his book: mankind has reached the current level of development not mainly due to exceptional work by individuals but by the high level of cooperation between individuals. In this view, asking for help (i.e. seeking communication/cooperation) with individual tasks should probably be highly encouraged not discouraged. At least, it is highly doubtful that the paradigm each for himself, the most ruthless wins will be adequate for the huge problems mankind will face in the near future (defeating hunger, preventing drastic climate changes, natural resources exhaustion, ); intensive cooperation seems to be necessary. I think you are much mis-interpreting the quoted text here. Steven is arguing against asking for help on homework **without being honest up-front about it and making an effort first**. We are all willing to help people who say For such-and-such homework assignment I created this-and-that program but I still cannot work out how to do so-and-so part. The problems come when someone shoves a simple problem at us, and basically says I must write this simple program, please do it for me. The canned response for that is What have you tried and where did you get problems? - look for a way to cooperate with people, to help them where that is necessary. What is being argued against is to just give the people the code in such a case. Steven and others are *looking for* cooperation, not shying away from it. Cooperation in the form of try to do it yourself, and if that fails, we will help you. What we don't want is 'cooperation' in the form just shove your problem on our plate and consider yourself done. -- André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
