Honestly....

Academic honesty, is something that is not very well promoted in schools today. Sadly, students are not the only ones who participate in dishonest dealing in schools. Many times the student is supported and encouraged to cheat, plagiarized and copy school work dishonestly by parents and even teachers!This is the influence of our society. In order to get things done we do it hurriedly and take short cuts so we do not have to spend time on "hard", tedious, meaningless tasks. Sometimes when a student is struggling in school and needs good grades for certain activities or sports, dishonesty in their assignments is the easy quick-fix.Parents and teachers encourage it by giving answers and looking the other way.

When role models in students lives are allowing a student to slack in their honesty in school, it is going to overflow into other parts of life. And when an adult does nothing about it, they are giving permission that it is acceptable to be dishonest. Honesty if very important. If one can not be trusted in what he says he will eventually become distrusted in everything he does or says.In life one can not cheat in his job, he would get fired. There are consequences for being dishonest in life and if you continue to do dishonest things in life they will eventually have to pay the consequences.

Teachers and parents need to set good examples in life so that students learn that dishonesty is an unacceptable behavior. In my high school, a person got it very big trouble for cheating, and plagiarizing usually led to rewriting an entire assignment, with a low grade. These may be considered tough rules, but this is a very important lesson to learn. In order to teach my class to be honest individuals, I will expect quality and original work from them. It is important that they clearly understand what is allowed in the assignment and what is not. Also I will need to exemplify honesty in my own life. If I do not hold a high standard of honesty, there is no way they are going to listen to my encouragement to be virtuous and honest citizens.

Teacher Citizenship

Teacher Citizenship is student citizenship times ten. Because teachers have very important role in educating students not only in academics, but also life and social skills, they need to be a positive role model for their students. Their etiquette, netiquette, moral beliefs and values are always on display. A teachers character should portray a positive example of what a citizen should look like. In order that these students understand the importance of being a good citizen, it is important that the people who are teaching these skills uphold good moral standards. Children, especially teen-agers, will not do something that their parents either do not demonstrate themselves or do not address as something they should not do.

It is especially important that a teacher is careful about how he portrays himself online. This generation knows all about technology. They use it. When a teacher talks about a student online or posts information about themselves that is not appropriate students are able to see stuff like that, and this reflects a bad image of not only the teacher, but the school and teaching that they represent. Many teachers have gotten in trouble and fired for such behavior. Because teachers are a very important factor in a students life it is important that they have high standards for themselves to portray what good citizens, online and in real life look like.

Citizens of the Internet

I did not know what digital citizenship was. I have now learned that digital citizenship is basically using manners while on the internet. Teaching students 'netiquette' as it is called, is very important because what we put on the internet reflects who we are as a person. We should maintain a professional composure as we write, communicate and discuss issues over the internet. Some of these rules are using good grammar, complete sentences and correct punctuation, something that everyone could work on! Other rules are not creating fake identities, being polite to others in out writing, credit or cite work that isn't your own. Always remember that hundreds of people, that you may or may not know, can see things that are done over FaceBook, Blogs, and other websites on the internet. Think before you post things, and remember that you are reflecting Christ in all that you do.

It is really easy to take what we see these days as accurate information and truth. But very often what we see is not actually true. This is especially easy to do when using the internet. When doing research or looking stuff up, we take for granted how quickly information can be sent to us wherever we are. But we never stop for a second to think if the information we are getting is accurate. Anyone can make a website about anything they want, and they could either purposefully or accidentally put invalid information.
Some ways to make sure to get good information is to stick with websites that are widely known. Professional sites usually end with .gov, .org, .mil,etc. Check to see if the website has a credited author. Look to see if the author is well known in the field he represents online or if there are titles or degrees given. Also because it is the internet it is easy to hop around and look at at other sites to compare the information that they all have. Also make sure that the websites are up to date.
These are just a couple of ways to check the validity of websites on the internet.

We learned about Fair Use and Copyright a couple of weeks ago in class, and it surprised me that there were so many rules and regulations and exceptions. I thought that copyright basically meant that you couldn't copy things right out of books and download music and movies off the internet. But boy was I wrong!! A copyright used to last only a few years, but now it is a lifetime plus some and even longer for corporations. I can understand not wanting people to steal your product, but wow. There are lots of rules about using things for education. Most of the time when something is used for education it is ok to use. BUT this dose not just mean that you can show a movie in class then. And if you copy papers, students can't keep them.

The copyright issue is so deep it's hard understand, but as a Christan, I still need to obey these laws no matter how inconvenient and annoying they may be. It is really easy to just let it slide and to plead ignorance, but now that I know some of these laws now, I can't just let them slide. Thankfully if you want to use something most of the time all you have to do is send an e-mail and get permission, and thankfully people are pretty nice about it. And if you don't know, e-mailing is easy enough that it won't hurt just to ask. So in the case of copyright laws, it is easier to ask permission than forgiveness.

A Christian's Worldview

A worldview is how a person perceives his world and what he believes about his interaction with the world. According to Dr. Noble a worldview is like a lens that a person looks through in order to interperet his world. A Christian worldveiw is seen through the lens of the Bible. This is sometimes difficult for people to understand because first of all, one must first believe that the Bible is what it says it is. If you don't believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God like it says in 1 Timothy 3:16, then you probably aren't going to take what it has to say very seriously. I for one, believe everything the Bible says, so I therefore base my worldveiw on it.

The Christian worldveiw is not that if your a good person,obey God, pray, and are nice to people that your life is going to be all dandy and you'll get to go to heaven. The Bible teaches that as a Christian you are saved by Grace, not by the things that we do (Ephesians 2:8). A Christian worldview isn't about what man can do, but what about God did. Because God has made a way for man to have fellowship with Him for eternity, Christian's base what they believe about God, His Son Jesus, other people, sin, government, law, marriage, the family, and other areas of a worldview on what He has given us through His Word. This again is hard to understand because we as humans tend to contaminate this worldview by the world around us and our own experiences, and sometimes we don't like what the Bible has to say about certain issues.

This probably seems crazy, and it is, but I myself can testify that though my worldview isn't "politically correct" or may not seem "tolerent" it is not me whom you will have to speak with. It's God. He made it this way, and it's perfect. If you hate me for it, it's ok. Jesus said that you would, but guess what? If you hate me, you hate Him, and if you hate Him, He still loves you. Isn't that kinda cool?? This is the lens I choose to look through.