Marcelo Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco have contributed an op-ed to today’s Education section of the Huffington Post. “Cheating Ourselves: Education and Its Discontents” examines the recent incidents of cheating on exams at Harvard, and the need to “once again think of education in the service of nourishing a dignified, engaged, and autonomous life.”
The Suárez-Orozcos write that cheating is a symptom of education’s focus on high stakes test scores and “a misplaced focus on giving kids skills for what we imagine to be the scarce jobs of the future. But to reduce education to manufacturing the workers and consumers of the future is a missed opportunity.”
“Education is inauthentic when it simply becomes a means to an end,” the authors say. “Cheating then is no big deal – just another means to an end. The end of education should be human flourishing, freedom and a more engaged citizenry with a view to the common good.”
To read the complete op-ed, click here.