Luddite Teachers

Neito

This morning, I had my first History class. While listening to the professor give her whole beginning-of-the-year speech, she said something like this: "I want you to write out your assignments because if you do it on the computer you can just press a button and have it done. This way, I at least know you're writing it."
This bothered me. She didn't object to people just, say, copying Wikipedia or whatever, but she assigned a high priority to the specific, mechanical action of writing with a pen or pencil. What is it about the process of writing that impresses teachers?

Chris

There are a lot of reasons they like you to write instead of type. It's more work to copy someone's work by hand then to ctrl-c -> ctrl-v. Depending on what grade level you're in the teachers may also prefer hand written because they'll come to remember your hand writing and be able to tell if you did it or if someone else did it. Then again maybe they're just afraid of technology and think the little magic box will eat them if they get to close.

Andrew

Just write with the worst handwriting possible. When she complains, tell her she wouldn't let you type it.

Neito

Just write with the worst handwriting possible. When she complains, tell her she wouldn't let you type it.

I wouldn't need to expend any effort on that.

JukeBoxJosh

It's the opposite in my classes, the teachers really want you to type instead of writing. And it's a bunch of "magnet" teachers, so you would of thought that with all the cheaters at our school, typing wouldn't be the safe way for essays or something. But, whatever. I type faster than I write, so my English writings get done faster.

Sean

Wait a second. So your History lecturer, a person who got their job by presumably reading extensively in the subject that they are teaching is making you write out essays to prevent plagiarism?? That's insane! If a lecturer can't spot plagiarism when they are marking work they should not be teaching. Its pretty easy to tell if someone hasn't written their own material, and a quick search of a dubious phrase on an online academic database would clarify it.

I get quite a bit of this at my university as well. We have a really good online system which automatically uploads lectures that have been recorded as MP3 files and stores them with all the lecture notes and slides. But only 2 of the lecturers of my current courses use it! All the other ones say that they don't want people not turning up to lectures and just doing the whole course online.

AtheriShadow

I have never had an instructor who requested hand-written assignments. Most of them specifically expressed their fear of the cryptic, unintelligible hieroglyphic languages that would doubtlessly pour forth on the due dates. They all seemed, in general, to be confident that they could spot cheating given that there would be a noticeable difference between the quality of the writing and the usual moronic things that came out of the students' mouths.

...

That's just stupid. I would've stood up and said: "Okay, with that policy mrs ......, you agree that you'll accept my works in my horrible handwriting and will not deduce points if you cannot decipher it." And then write every damn thing in Dutch. Horribly of course.

Just, as others have said, write worse then your normal. Then when she complains say she wanted it that way. Heck, did she say anything about it having to be in the Latin alphabet? For if not you can just make some ancient looking scribbles for each letter and replace it. Will take longer, but you'll get the point across that her policy is stupid.

starflyer3000

While I do agree that requiring long papers handwritten is incredibly useless, just for the sake of argument, if a student decided to turn in his or her work in horrible handwriting I would probably just write a big o 0 on the paper and be done with it.

Jason

Argument:

The longer it takes to articulate an idea into hardcopy, the more likely you are to remember that idea. I can type four times faster than I can print. Therefore, if I write something by hand, I am far more likely to remember that thing than if I type it.

Discuss.

However, I doubt this is what the teacher has in mind.

Neito

Argument:

The longer it takes to articulate an idea into hardcopy, the more likely you are to remember that idea. I can type four times faster than I can print. Therefore, if I write something by hand, I am far more likely to remember that thing than if I type it.

Counterargument:
Typing makes it easier to articulate ideas. By typing, rather than writing, more energy can be spent on the supposed focus of an assignment, learning and thinking of ideas.

snookernet

Anytime homework was assigned that involved the definitions of words, while it was more tedious, writing them always resulted with me remembering more of the terms. Typing them was faster, but it ended up becoming a mindless task at that point.

GreatTeacherMacRoss

I can't imagine any teacher doing this at all. It's beyond stupid. Any teacher worth their salt at any grade level can easily get writing samples from students in class on any number of occations, and then use them as a basis to judge if writing is plaguerized or not. It's very, very easy to tell when someone's work is not their own.

Neito

I can't imagine any teacher doing this at all. It's beyond stupid. Any teacher worth their salt at any grade level can easily get writing samples from students in class on any numbebr of occations, and then use them as a basis to judge if writing is praguerized or not. It's very, very easy to tell when someone's work is not their own.

The issue is, she doesn't even CARE if we copy. The only assignments she's giving us are 4 take home, open internet tests.
She just wants up to SPECIFICALLY write things out instead of typing them up.

Kate Monster

I had several teachers in high-school who knew all about the convenience of the internet for copying and pasting content. That is why they asked for citations and CHECKED the cited material. They also regularly checked Spark Notes, Wikipedia, and other common tools kids use(d) to copy from, so they could identify it when it was copied. They would also ask in depth, analytical questions that would make "copy-paste" papers pretty obvious.

Your teacher is lazy in her reasoning. I would ask the head of the department, curriculum coordinator, etc. to look into the validity of this reasoning, particularly as high school is supposedly a prep for real life and higher education - both of which demand a high level of proficiency with word processing and the utilization of electronic media.

Apreche

Heck, if school were really about preparing you for real life, they would train you in how to copy without getting caught rather than punishing you for it. Bullshitting is one of the most valuable skills you can have these days.

Kate Monster

I think the goal of training you to think for yourself and find your own well reasoned answers, etc. prepares you far better than teaching you to bullshit your way through life, because eventually someone with real intelligence will see that you are full of shit.... and then where does that get you? Eventually you need to bring the goods.

Rym

...prepares you far better than teaching you to bullshit your way through life, because eventually someone with real intelligence will see that you are full of shit.... and then where does that get you? Eventually you need to bring the goods.
The real skill there is knowing you have the goods and bullshitting anyway.  This power-bullshitting saves you valuable time and effort.  If I know that I can do something, and I also know that whether or not I actually do it will have zero real-world ramifications in any given, then I simply will not do it.   I know my boss doesn't read my reports?  I submit the same report every week with an updated title.  I know my teacher will give me an A just because I've done well in the past?  Welcome to crappo-essay-world.

Omnutia

Oh dude, do it on typewriter then when she objects ask her in what way it is problematic compared to hand writing it. If she accepts that see if you can find one of those old ribbon printers and just do it that way.