Teacher Raises a Conscientious Objection

Re “Conscientious Objector” (June 8): I was Michael Josephson’s son’s American literature teacher in 1992, and had the pleasure of meeting him at that time. As a high school and college teacher for 16 years, I appreciate Josephson wanting to raise ethical issues that are so essential to having a decent, safe and sane society. I do, however--based on my experience--take issue with some of his opinions.

I’ve heard Mr. Josephson speak, and we personally discussed the issue of cheating in schools. It was obvious then, as now, that he seemed to put a lot of the onus on teachers for not doing enough to prevent or condemn cheating. I thought then that Josephson seemed to have a somewhat facile understanding of ethical issues in the educational arena.

Public school teachers deal with a staggering variety of moral and ethical questions on an almost hourly basis. In the high schools, certainly, we are no strangers to students’ plagiarism and other types of cheating. To combat these, we use vigilance, instruction, inspiration and, sometimes, punishment. The purpose, always, is to show the students ways of behaving that will benefit them and society in the future.

We feel that to be maniacal (even if we had the time for it) about detecting and punishing cheaters would be to give the messages that “cheating is wrong because the world is too clever and watchful for you to get away with it.”

Isn’t it better to tell students the truth--that cheating gives a person a bad feeling about himself and adds nothing to his skills and knowledge for the future?

I’d love to see Josephson taking his message to journalists, judges, attorneys and businessmen--the people with the greatest potential to harm society with their lack of ethical awareness. However, those people might not be an easy sell. Schools seem to be a target for many outsiders who seek to impose solutions to problems only those in the schools are truly in a position to understand.

VALERIE ILUSTRE

Los Angeles