Lately, I have been reading quite a few essays relating to the field of teaching English in two-year colleges. I read one today, “Another Look at Plagiarism in the Digital Age: Is It Time to Turn in My Badge?” by Benie B. Colvin, in which she discussed the topic of plagiarism in schools.

While I didn’t agree with many of the statements and ideas in the essay, there were some interesting points. One of the issues that Colvin brought up was that writing really isn’t an individual activity, but one that is collaborative; that is, writing doesn’t come to authors entirely pure. It is always tainted, if you will, by things the writer has already read from other authors. While I do agree that other writing inspires us, as authors, I’m not so sure that other things I’ve read influence everything I write. I do agree that when we write nonfiction we are adding to the canon of knowledge on a specific topic; we even may reiterate other authors’ words and ideas (with proper citation, of course) to respond to their certain thoughts, clarify or make a point, or lay a foundation of basic knowledge for readers new to the subject. I don’t agree that authors cannot come up with their own original ideas on a topic and that there is one original idea made by the first one to a subject and then everything that comes after is a re-hash. I think that the viewpoint that writing is collaborative is a result of groupthink, a phenomenon that is growing quickly in today’s working environments, especially in white-collar industries.

Another point well made in the piece was that students who cheat in school would cheat in other areas of their life. I do think this is very true, especially in their work lives. The rise of corporate crime, such as the Enron disaster and the Madoff scandal, in my mind, is proof of this mentality. I think the job market and its prospects are closely tied to plagiarism, in all its forms, in school. I believe that a wide number of students in today’s colleges and universities are there not to gain knowledge, but to obtain the piece of paper (their diploma) that they need to get a job that will get them more pieces of paper…green paper, with Presidents’ faces on them. They do not see doing their own work as helping them develop character and discover knowledge; they do not value their own voice, but instead see no problem with purchasing a “custom essay” or cutting and pasting another’s work and passing it off as their own.

Instead, plagiarism is a means of getting good grades in class with little to no effort (as long as they are not caught); these good grades result in graduation, which results in a degree and access to more higher paying jobs. Managers hire college graduates with little to no practical industry knowledge but who do possess impressive degrees, which leads to managers and other upper-level positions with individuals in them that cannot do the job they oversee, or cannot perform their job duties successfully. The other end of the spectrum is that these types of individuals see opportunities to make a great deal of money with little to no effort, and cheat in order to get large amounts of cash.

What is the saying? Cheaters never prosper? I wish that were true.

Colvin, Benie B. “Another Look at Plagiarism in the Digital Age: Is It Time to Turn in My Badge?” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 35.2 (December 2007) 149-158.

When I first began working in the educational system, my husband was worried. Not about any of the usual things like getting sick and late nights grading papers, he was scared I would be physically injured, perhaps even shot. He knew I was beginning the year in a special classroom, an elementary SIED room (a center-based program for children with significant identifiable emotional disorders), but I knew that was not the only thing on his mind.

We live in Colorado, and although we are nowhere near Littleton and it had been three years since, I knew that the Columbine shootings were in the forefront of his thoughts. With the recent attack on Deer Creek Middle School, again nowhere near where we live, my husband sits at the opposite end of the couch at the end of each day and looks at me, shaking his head. Even though I now teach at the college level, he still wants me to get out of the field of education for my own safety.

His concerns make me wonder; would I be safer in the classroom if I were properly trained in and had a weapon?

The more I think about it and the more I read on the subject, I believe that yes, I would. School districts such as the one in Harrold, Texas, allow their teachers to have guns in the classroom. Harrold employees are required to follow Texas law and obtain a concealed carry permit, as well as apply for permission from the school board to carry on campus, receive crisis intervention training, hostage situation training, and go through an evaluation from the school board to determine the individual’s personality and probable crisis response.

To me, this makes sense. As teachers, we are trained in how to lead students from a fire, where to position ourselves in case of a tornado or earthquake, and that in an intruder situation, how to lock down the building. What happens when we lock ourselves in with an active shooter? We should have training in how to protect actively our students and ourselves just as we have for other types of emergencies.

The brave math teacher from Deer Creek Middle School was able to save the lives of his students by tackling a shooter while outside of the building; the only intruder instance I have ever been involved in did not include a weapon but did include our heroic principal tackling one of the intruders after chasing him down through our building. What about instances such as Columbine, or Virginia Tech; would they have ended differently if one staff member, just one, had a weapon and knew how to use it in a crisis?

I would really like to think that I own my own body. However, a recent episode of “Stossel” on the Fox Business channel has caused me to have serious doubts as to whether that “given” is true or not.

I admit that before I saw this episode, I didn’t really think a lot about the FDA very much; I was far too worried about revolutionary radicals in the White House and keeping my job, bailing out banks and making sure my investment portfolio didn’t tank. Honestly, I didn’t even really know what the FDA did, besides test toys for lead and warn us about the mercury levels of fish I don’t like and don’t eat anyway. After Stossel’s report though, I had to do some digging for myself.

According to their website, the “FDA is also responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medicines and foods more effective, safer, and more affordable; and helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health.” That sounds commendable, but according to a study paid for by the National Cancer Institute and published by the Journal of Clinical Oncology, new cancer drugs took seven years for the FDA to approve, even if they were part of the so-called “accelerated approval” program. The FDA created this program in 1992 to speed up the approval process for drugs that showed promise for saving lives. These drugs were to become available to patients earlier than other medicines, saving more lives.

That’s not how it worked out though. According to the same study, between 1995 and 2007 the FDA only approved 19 “quickly” (still taking seven or more years to reach patients), with 32 more receiving approval through normal timeframes. In that time span, researchers submitted some 510,000 compounds to the FDA for approval, and yet on average, only one out of each 10,000 made it to market. That may sound like a lot of approved medication and many saved lives, but it’s not enough. People are still dying every day from cancer in America, and a great deal of them are dying because they cannot get access to the medication their unique body needs for their specific type of cancer to possibly save or extend their life.

The other incredible hurdle in getting medications to patients faster is money. It costs MILLIONS, if not HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars to battle through the FDA approval process. ICI Pharmaceuticals (known today as AstraZeneca) began research in the 1950s that would lead to the development of the breast cancer drug Nolvadex (generic tamoxifen); after they finished with the FDA’s grueling trials and approval requirements, it was 1977. The costs during those 27 years soared to over 500 million dollars. No wonder medicine costs more for patients with serious illnesses each month than housing.

One incredible foundation that is battling the FDA through the court system to get better access to developmental drugs for seriously ill patients is Abigail Alliance. Abigail was a beautiful young woman battling cancer. After trying all of the conventional medications and treatments with no satisfactory results, Abigail’s doctor suggested she try Erbitux or Iressa, two EGFR targeting drugs that he felt could help her win her battle. The problem was that these drugs were not completely through the expensive, lengthy FDA approval process, so she could not take the medications that could potentially save her life, even though her doctor felt she had a substantial chance at success. The government stepped in, through the FDA, and said that she could not choose put those medications into her own body, even if they could save her life, because they said so. It didn’t matter that she was dying; it didn’t matter that she was willing to accept the risks; the government simply said no. Abigail died from her cancer mere months after the government denied her access to these medications.

So, I ask: Who owns your body? You, or the government?

I really usually don't do stuff like this, but I'm REALLY hacked off.

If you haven't already had experience with this website, you are very fortunate.

Advertised as a site for freelancers of all sorts (in my case, writers) to find quality buyers for varied products, the site used to be of a decent quality, with buyers posting projects worth looking at.

Over the past year, there has been an increase of insultingly low projects (500+ words of original content on specific buyer-directed topics for $1). It is worth noting that the freelancers pay to use the service, while these "buyers" can post whatever they want, as often as they want, for free.

When freelancers would post concerns over such ridiculously low pay for such projects, iFreelance.com management essentially tells them to "shut up" and either bans them from the posting or shuts down the thread completely.

I have had enough, and as such canceled my membership.

My purpose in posting this is to help other freelancers avoid wasting their time on this website:

www.iFreelance.com

Best of luck to you all,

Gloria