Plagiarism and Plato

If you ever wish to engage a high school faculty in a lively discussion, just mention the word plagiarism. Students copy and paste volumes from the Internet. They unashamedly copy each other’s homework in the hallways. They will look teachers right in the eye and swear that every word of their perfect essay came straight from their own minds. Research leaves no doubt that plagiarism is rampant in our high schools and colleges. Teachers often focus on this most basic form of plagiarism, copying text from an undocumented source. However, there is another, more insidious, form of plagiarism.

It was during my junior year of college that I first became aware of this more advanced form of plagiarism. I enrolled in a class about Plato, one of my favorite philosophers. I was introduced to Plato during a two year experimental lower division program in which 120 students and 6 professors studied the history of western culture. This program stressed critical thinking. Logical arguments, well documented and thoughtfully written, were the avenue to success during those two years. My first essay in my upper division class about Plato was written just as I had learned during my two years lower division studies. To my mind, t was one of my better papers.

The professor gave me a “C” on that essay. When I asked him why he gave me the “C” he told me it was because the paper did not reflect his ideas. I asked him if he thought my thesis was a good one and if it was well documented. His answer was affirmative for both questions. Then he told me that I missed the point. His objective in these assignments was not to read about my ideas. His objective was to find if I had listened to and understood his ideas. I got it. Just like high school. So I plagiarized his ideas for the rest of the semester and got my “A” in the class.

The irony of the situation was eclipsed by my shock over the narrow-mindedness of that professor. We were studying Plato, the godfather of the dialectic, and we were being told the path to knowledge, or at least to passing this course, was not by questioning the arguments of the professor but by plagiarizing them. No questioning, no argument, and no synthesis of ideas were allowed in this course. Whatever we learned about dialectical reasoning would not be an outcome of the way this course was taught.

Some teachers may agree with that professor. After all, aren’t teachers the purveyors of information? Must not students show they understand this information? To some extent, this is true. But this sort of learning is the bottom rung of the education ladder. Information is now available everywhere, more than any of us could ever absorb. What students really need to learn is critical thinking, problem solving, and metacognition. According to dictionary.reference.com plagiarism is “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.” In every essay in my Plato class following my first fateful mistake I boldly plagiarized the thoughts of that professor. I received an “A” for my efforts. Later in college I continued to plagiarize the thoughts of my professors and of my textbooks. I did this because I soon learned that this was the path to attaining good grades.

Thanks to online plagiarism checking programs like Turnitin.com copying text should be a thing of the past. Since I implemented this program at my high school five years ago most essays written there have been recorded in the Turnitin.com database, along with almost everything posted on the Internet. Direct copying as a form of plagiarism has become nearly impossible for our students.

When it comes to the copying of ideas however, plagiarism is alive and well. This is where our schools are failing our students. Schools are so caught up in what students must know; they forget how much students need to understand. Schools need to emphasize critical thinking, dialectical reasoning, and innovation. Just as there are skills that enable students to memorize the states and their capitals, there are skills that enable students to synthesize information to create original and exciting works.

It’s been over 2300 years since Plato wrote his famous dialogues exemplifying dialectical reasoning. His works have become an integral piece of the foundation of Western philosophy. But where is dialectical reasoning in our curriculum? How many students even know what it is? How many high schools have any of Plato’s dialogues on their required reading lists? Wouldn’t it be valuable if students were taught how to use rational discussion to resolve differences? Or maybe we should continue to encourage our students to plagiarize our lectures and textbooks just as my college professor did in his attempt to teach the true meaning Plato’s dialogues.