It’s 30 minutes until midnight, and you haven’t even had time to start the assigned “Systematic Theology” reading. As you scramble for the 20-pound piece of literature that will soon hang itself from your eyelids, you wonder how you’ll ever tackle the amount of reading due by the next morning. Upon finding what could prove to be your salvation, or your downfall, under the last three weeks worth of laundry, you have a choice to make. Twenty-eight minutes left. Do you scan your eyes across every page while your thoughts wander to the cute girl or guy you saw in class, knowing that if you “read” 2.3 pages every minute, you will finish on time? Or do you take the approach of reading the first and last paragraphs? Because everybody knows that anything important is contained within these two paragraphs. A student unfamiliar with Biola may ask what the rush is, or why read we it at all, but we are all acquainted with the loved-by-professors reading report with its italicized honesty policy: “As you record your accomplished reading, please remember that you are a Christian.”
Honesty is an excellent virtue to have. In fact, many people could use an extra dose with their morning vitamins. However, Biola seems keen to prey on their Christian students’ morals in the area of homework. I don’t see why; the guards, armed with de-scanner guns, posted at every exit of chapel, reveals how Biola feels about its students’ honesty. They trust students in one area, but not in another.
While de-scanner guns and reading reports might be conducive to holding students accountable, that is not the function they ultimately play. Instead of keeping students honest, these nuisances simply force students to get more creative with their deception — which is why honesty reports should be abolished. This is not because they “make” people dishonest about how much they read, but rather because I don’t think that it is advantageous to learning, work ethic or morality. It is up to students to make honest choices on their own, and there are much better ways to encourage them to make the right choice.
In the college world, many professors have replaced quizzes or summary assignments with reading reports in order to cut down on busy work. However, this completely invalidates the importance of the reading; not to mention, it uses a students’ Christian morals as a way of coaxing them into doing what professors want. If students don’t not feel the material itself will do anything for their grades, they are not likely to take in much of what is “read.”
Many professors have a common misperception that students are just lazy. Though this is sometimes true, most often a student is too burdened with other work to give much attention to something that will not affect their grade other than the fact that they “did it.” The average student can figure out what texts are important to learn in the first week or two of class, and will not waste their time on something that the teacher decided to fill the class reading requirement with. If the professor cannot spend the time to come up with a quiz, or grade written summaries, why would a student find it necessary to put their time into reading it? A grade on a quiz or written summary is going to be much more accurate than a reading report.
In some cases, an honesty-policy reading report will be more rewarding to the student who is dishonest. But we’re at a Christian university and are supposed to focus on the eternal rewards rather than the temporary. That doesn’t mean that we ignore the facts that the honor system of reading assignments is flawed. If a student doesn’t read the material, that should show in the grade of tests and papers, not a bubble next to one yes or no question.
Fifteen minutes left. It’s getting late. There are Chem lab notes to finish, and a girl that needs texting. You glance from the reading report hung neatly next to your desk, then back to the brick in front of you. Eh, what’s a couple of pages unfinished? Okay, so maybe you only got to the first page, but you’ll mark off that you did 98 percent and feel better that you didn’t give yourself 100 percent credit. Honesty is the best policy, right?
