“Peeping Pearson” and Depersonalizing A Student’s Understanding of Right from Wrong
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
― Confucius
Hidden within this past weekend’s Peeping Pearson spying incident is a problem that is pervasive and increasing across the country—student cheating.
Bob Braun, former education reporter and news editor for The Star-Ledger, bloggedabout a student being monitored on social media by test publishing company Pearson. A New Jersey superintendent had been notified that a student in their district had tweeted something about the PARCC test on Twitter. This raised countless critical questions and concerns about what constitutes student privacy on social media.
Despite being appalled like most about the surveillance, I was curious about why this student put something about the test on Twitter in the first place. In fairness, the superintendent didn’t think it constituted cheating. But why did the student mention the test? Did someone set them up? Were they just goofing off? Was the student scoffing at the test? Were they trying to help someone who had not taken the test yet? If it wasn’t important, why did Pearson care enough to notify the superintendent?
What concerns me, is the impersonal nature of Pearson, a faraway testing company, playing gotcha with the student. It dismisses what is going on with the student if they are actually cheating. I am not accusing this student of cheating. I have no information to suggest such a thing.
But what happens to students when they get caught cheating this way? The“Peeping Pearson” and Depersonalizing A Student’s Understanding of Right from Wrong:
