“As China’s economy recovers, employers are competing to hire low-skilled workers, but many of China’s best and brightest, its college graduates, are facing a long stretch of unemployment.”

Read more at The New York Times

When applying to VIA, I listed this as a future concern that Vietnam would one day face. China’s economic growth in low-skill labor markets and education were impressive, but where were the high-skill jobs that students were training for? I argued that the education of students was far outpacing the actual growth of white-collar jobs by merely comparing graduation numbers to the number of jobs available. Vietnam, I believed, would be heading in the same direction.

“Critics say displaying dwarfs is at best misguided and at worst immoral, a throwback to times when freak shows pandered to people’s morbid curiosity.

…

But there is another view, and Mr. Chen and some of his short-statured workers present it forcefully. One hundred permanently employed dwarfs, they contend, is better than 100 dwarfs scrounging for odd jobs. They insist that the audiences who see the dwarfs sing, dance and perform comic routines leave impressed by their skills and courage.”

Read more at the New York Times

Throughout the article, the authors refer to “dwarfism” as a disability and “persons of short stature” as “the disabled”. I found this strange while reading because I never considered “persons of short stature” to be disabled. After checking Wikipedia and performing a Google search, dwarfism is considered a medical condition under the American with Disabilities Act.

The question at debate in the article is, “Is the ‘Kingdom of the Little People’ in China degrading or empowering?”

“An associate professor at a Chinese university has been punished after students reported finding an online test, from another college, that matched an open-book exam in his course.”

Read more at The Chronicle

Students were able to find a test online that was near identical to the exam they were about to take when they entered class. This lead to complaints from students to the administration. For many students, this would be the equivalent to finding gold. The comments to the article offer a good back and forth on on plagiarism by students. The question I want to ask is, “Is this plagiarism?”

Many courses are now shared through opencourseware, including exams. Even if it is not, a lot of courses are developed off of another. I know that when developing courses, I take this route- researching what’s available, how instructors are teaching an idea, which books are being used, etc. I do, however, change or add to it to account for my knowledge and professional experience. In the extreme case of finding a website that has “everything”, I contact the professor and link to it, giving credit in the course syllabus and on the course webpage where appropriate. Some professors want acknowledgement for their work at every instance, and some don’t.

Another scenario that one often finds is that textbook makers provide quizzes and exams. What if the instructor chooses to simply use only these exams, and the students find the same exams online?

I’m curious to know the original professor’s stance on someone else using his self-created exam in their class. If he or she deems it okay, what of the plagiarism claim? And the punishment?

alan-???? Gunjou no Tani MV (DVD Ver.)

The song and video by Alan Dawa Dolma is beautiful and it brings back all the memories I have from the study abroad trip to China. The scenery in the video is amazing and it makes me long to see more. I hope that one day Tibet and China can come to a peaceful agreement.