Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Not in Tennessee Anymore

Every day, I get a little reminder that I'm not in the States. For example, in one of my classes today we were discussing the notion that there is more than one form of morality, e.g. murder versus killing in wartime are viewed very differently.

My professor gave an example from Princeton, where I guess she did some undergraduate work. Princeton apparently has a honor code similar to Rhodes': students pledge not to cheat on exams, the professors hand out the exams and leave the class, and the students don't cheat. She added that if a student in the class did cheat, the other students would turn him/her in.

She then asked the Turkish students how they would react if a student turned them in for cheating on an un-proctored exam. Apparently, the snitch would be taunted and ostracized.

Now, if this little scenario happened at Rhodes, probably not everyone would be on the same side. Nevertheless, I think everyone would agree that the person who told was following their conscience and at the very least believed they were in the right. To have students not even consider the prospect of turning another student in--and to admit this to a professor, no less-- was certainly unexpected.

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