We know that students plagiarize. We suppose that plagiarism, as well as academic dishonesty in general, has increased over the past few years, decades, or century—depending on which academic ax we choose to grind. The caveats are familiar: Perhaps cheating just is easier than it used to be (most honors students who are caught plagiarizing say they did so because it was “easy”). Perhaps we are better at detecting plagiarism because of software such as Google and Turnitin. Or perhaps we forget that every generation, at least since the ancient Romans and Greeks, complains that the next one is composed...

In the United States, college degrees come from many sources with many different perspectives on the nature and function of the degree. According to the Random House Dictionary, college degrees generally refer to “an academic title conferred by universities and colleges as an indication of the completion of a course of study, or as an honorary recognition of achievement.” The concept of post-secondary education is broader than the two- or four-year institutions that are typically thought of as “college.” The concept of higher education includes all the trade, vocational, and career institutes, as well as academic college and university programs...

They’re too confining, he says. They trap kids in chairs, in classrooms, in the narrow bounds of an established curriculum. So White and a handful of fellow revolutionaries have begun pushing a new vision for American public education. Call it the a la carte school. The model, now in practice or under consideration in states including Louisiana, Michigan, Arizona and Utah, allows students to build a custom curriculum by selecting from hundreds of classes offered by public institutions and private vendors. A teenager in Louisiana, for instance, might study algebra online with a private tutor, business in a local entrepreneur’s...

While Vietnamese teachers are complaining about their low pay, an old woman continues teaching for free in the Mekong Delta. 68-year-old Nguyen Thi Do, a.k.a. Ms. Ba Do, has been offering free education for almost 30 years in Hau Giang Province, where generations of poor students have studied with the woman in her small riverside café that doubles as a classroom. Continue reading Tuoitrenews

Distinguished members of the Swedish Academy, Ladies and Gentlemen: Through the mediums of television and the Internet, I imagine that everyone here has at least a nodding acquaintance with far-off Northeast Gaomi Township. You may have seen my ninety-year-old father, as well as my brothers, my sister, my wife and my daughter, even my granddaughter, now a year and four months old. But the person who is most on my mind at this moment, my mother, is someone you will never see. Many people have shared in the honor of winning this prize, everyone but her. My mother was born...

Colorado College’s 125th Anniversary SymposiumCultures in the 21st Century: Conflicts and Convergences “One material civilization, multiple spiritual cultures” (I prefer the German distinction of civilization and culture) is a favorite topic of mine. The first part of the topic means that modernization is irresistible in the world. People almost everywhere (there may be a few exceptions) prefer electric lamps to oil lamps, air conditioners to hand fans, cars to horses for transportation, houses to tents for living. Modernization has made great improvements in diet, clothing, housing, travel, and longevity, no matter the culture, religion, morality, or “nationality” of a people....