The Technical High School Student Changed His Own and Everybody Else’s Grade to Passing, Hacking into the Systems

How the high school student should be punished more severely, to TEACH him the lessons, to NEVER cut any corners, but, the punishment of probation won’t do CRAP, in fact, it’s bound to teach this lad, that wow, he could get away, with bigger, harder, crimes in his futures, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

A high school student, Chiang from a public technical high school, worried that his and his classmates’ grades aren’t good enough, took advantage of his job at the offices of student affairs, logged into the computer systems, changed the seven instructors’ log-in passwords, then, successfully got into the grades management systems, and, was able to change the grades for himself, twelve others in a total of ten courses; the school thought that someone had hacked into the school computer systems, notified the police, the investigations chased the leads, and found that it was done by the student in the school.  The district attorneys considered that the student showed remorse over what he’d done, and his instructors are willing to forgive him, gave him only probation, fined him $10,000N.T.s, and he’s mandated to attend a seminar on the laws.

what he’s doing now…photo from online

The D.A. found, that the technical high school part-timed at the offices of student affairs, helped the head counselor with simple paperwork; last May, the head counselor collected the roll call sheet for every class, and, handed the ledger and the password of the accounts to Chiang, asked him to log into the discipline code systems, and help with the logging in the data for who had been absent.

As Chiang received the password, he’d found that he can log on to the “Web grades’ management systems”, he’d used the manager’s status, logged on to the systems, changed the seven passwords of seven instructors, then, used the new password, to log in, changed him and his twelve best friend’s grades in ten courses, to passing in all.

The instructors found that they couldn’t log onto the “Web grades management systems”, thought that the school system had been hacked, reported to the school, the school called the police, the investigative bureau in Kaohsiung sent the agents to chase the leads, reviewed over the log-in-data, the IP address of the log-in, found that it was done by the student, Chiang, and not a hacker.

Chiang admitted to changing the grades for his fellow students, claimed that it was out of goodwill, that he’d not wanted his friends to retake because they’d failed the classes. The D.A. thought that he showed remorse, and the teachers are all willing to forgive him, and so he was given probation.

and he’s bound to become…

photo from online

And so, guess WHAT this experience will teach this student?  That he can get away with bigger crimes, I mean, he did, get away, with only a SLAP on the wrist, for hacking into the computer system at his school, altering the instructors’ passwords, and, logging in to CHANGE the grades for himself, as well as his other, friends, and, because this punishment was, way too lenient, that’s why, he’s, bound to, escalate, and who knows, the D.A. just, made another high-tech criminal, and they don’t even have a single clue of how this young man will become, a hard criminal as he becomes, older.

Student: from Growing Up, When I Didn’t Do Well on Exams, I Got Scolded

Tracing down, to the roots of, why the students were, compelled, to, cheat!  Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

The news of a public university’s students involved in the collective cheating of an exams, many of the students were noted as the “heads of their classes”.  The researcher of the Central Research Agency, Chen stated, that reason for why students cheat has to do with how they’re not, interested in the course, that they wanted to use the easiest means to get pass the exams.  There are also the scholars who believed, that from the values that stemmed from “Degrees meant everything, grades are the most important”, it’d driven the students to cheat to get a higher grade.

Chen told, that reasons why students would cheat may be related to how they’re disinterested in the courses.  The most important goal of university education is to instilled that love of learning in students, to help students find a direction of an area of interest that they will be pursuing.  Cheating is bad, but, the universities need to consider, that if they’d, instructed the professional knowledge way too soon, not allowing the students enough means to, exercise their interest profiles?

The Experimental League Foundation of Taiwan’s C.E.O., Wei told, that those with the beliefs of “Degrees ranks the top”, the values of “grades meant everything”, it’d caused the results of the students, working to get the grades, and not cared about how they got the grade they received, and, this sort of upbringing, will only cause them to have the wrong focus of pursuits in life.

The student of Central University, who’d directed the documentary of last year high school student, “1819”, Chen told, when we didn’t do well we get scolded this was, the common experience of students in Taiwan, “no matter what, you need to get your grades high” became, the rooted value across all schools.  And, even as the rules and regulations of the schools tightened up, it still, wouldn’t work, it would only cause the disagreements of professors, students to happen more and more often.

The C.E.O. of Taiwan Democratic Youth Association, Chang also believed, that the students are raised in the grades-oriented, testing environment, and even if the schools punished the cheaters, it’s still, fixing what’s broken after it’s broken.  Chang called out, that education should help students return to themselves to have them take the responsibilities for their own learning, other than strict discipline for those who were caught cheating, “counseling” is also, needed, he’d hoped that the schools can set up a supportive system, to help the students understand, why they’d not done well enough on the exams, and to give the students a viable outlet, so they don’t get crushed by their academic work, that way, they wouldn’t, cheat again.

The former head of Department of Education, Tseng told, that the school needed to view the cheating of students with a serious manner, to examine if the cheating were, isolated incident, or is it, happening all across the schools, what’s, trending?

And so, by fixing this problem, we need to figure out, what drove these students to cheat, and, if we don’t dig deep enough, and only punish those who were caught cheating, there will always be cheating, but, if we dig down deeper, to find out WHAT drove these students to cheat, we have a better means, to fix this problem completely.

The Need for Evolution of Traditional Testing Means Aside from Preventing Uses of High-Tech Gadgets to Cheat

Due to how many of the colleges, universities had been found of students, cheating on their exams recently, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

There had been many universities with the cheating of the mid-term exams of late, the natives of the digital age knew more than their professors, how to get a higher grade from technologies, the pure moral lectures are, no longer enough, to block of these trends in cheating now.  In the online learning age, smartphones are, a part of, daily lives now, and, the digital became, an asset in cheating, and the traditional evaluation measures, and the rules needed, to adapt, and adjust, and amend to prevent this.

from before…

photo from online

The university lecturers used the never-amended textbooks to teach, whether the notes, the test questions, and even the reports for the classes are, easily, accessible, which allows the students to easily copy and cheat.  As I’d gone to my doctoral course, the classes are, smaller, and, the teaching assistant would find the newest English international publications, have the students read them, and the professor would evaluate, the materials for the courses are, innovative, and the students don’t dare slack off.

But, in the undergraduate level, when there are over hundreds of students per course, how can the professors resolve the matter of understanding of the materials?  The written reports, the exams by pencil and Scantrons, why aren’t they, effective?

The high-tech devices are the best tools for communication between us, also, a good device for cheating, the smartphones, the smart watches, glasses, iPads, Bluetooth, glasses, or even, watches too, not only are they, ever the more, advanced, and their sizes are, getting smaller too.

and now…

the watches, the glasses you wear are, the “best-used”, tools…photo from online

It seemed natural, to use the cell phones in class at the university levels, but, during the mid-term exams, the rules of the middle school exams, the college entrance should be followed, NO high tech devices allowed into the testing classrooms; even if there’s the limitation of space for storage of these devices, the high-tech devices should be placed aside, in a plastic bag that the schools can provide, to prevent the students from cheating using the high-tech devise, to set up the cheating prevention of the high-tech devise.

And so, these smart phones, smart watches, whatever became, a good tools for students to cheat with, unlike how we were to cheat back then, we only had slips of papers to write the answers on, over, writing of the answers over our hands to look at when we take the exams, and, the means to prevent cheating does need to evolve, because these high-tech devices are evolving too.

All We See are the Grades, What About Moral Education?

This, is the PROBLEM of the education system here, but the rest of the world can ALSO relate, I’m sure, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

There was the shocking news of how a school teacher gave an exam to her son to take first, reason being that the son wasn’t that good in school.  Other than feeling this wrenching in my heart, I can’t help but wonder: what’s WRONG with the instructors?

The examination papers should be “top secret”, and, before the examinations, the instructors must kept them covered up, to NOT make it available to the students or other instructors, otherwise, the test would have lost ITS fairness, and not to mention that this, would be illegal too.  I can’t understand how this instructor managed to get the test papers, it must be something with the security situation at the school then.

In this realm where grades are everything and moral education is unimportant, this sort of a bad behavior needed to be reprimanded, and the ones behaving not up to standards are the school instructors.  Reason being, there this atmosphere of comparing the scores flowing around in the schools, between the students themselves, and the classes too, and the instructors got caught up in the competitions too.  The ones whose classes performed well were dubbed “famous”, and everybody believed that those who were trained under the famous would perform well, and so, the instructors got put on that high pedestal; and, the unlucky classes, the instructors are already quite depressed, and they still had to get grilled by the school principals on their teaching methods, HOW would there be room for moral education?

And, the moral education is not done well enough at all, that, is what everybody’s saying here, and everybody ranted on how we need to rethink the methods of the teachers, or the systems, along with the parents and the students’ lack of hard work, etc., etc., etc.  And I believe, that what needed change, IS our attitudes, we must start losing the belief of “education is everything, and, everything ELSE is nothing”.

And so, the reforms in education IS needed, because you have teachers that STOLE from the lounge, so the son would do well in HIS class, and what’s that teaching the child?  That he can cheat and lie his way out of things, because HIS mama just did it for him, and this, is precisely W-H-Y the education realm is NO longer as well-rounded as it used to be.

The Adults Took Their Shortcuts, and the Kids are Paying for the Consequences

On the case of the children’s baseball league cheating scam, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

The Mingdao Incident had become the BIGGEST offense in the history of junior baseball league here, and still, the foul behaviors from the elementary school showed a MUCH more serious issue than breaking the rules.

The reason why there’s the rule implemented by the junior baseball league is because there are too many schools that took advantage of transfers to get the team up to progress.  And still, to the kids, because they were forced to move to a new school district, and were forced to give up on what they loved the most, it’s way too unreasonable.  Simply stated, this, is a rule to prevent the ADULTS from cheating, instead, it’d hurt the kids’ rights to play ball.

Getting to the bottom of this, since the first win by the youth leagues here, the society had placed upon the elementary school kids, too many expectations, wanting them to make the country proud, to allow the nation to be put on the maps, so to speak, but, to tell the truth, making the kids handle these adult pressures, are you sure that it’s the right way?

And all of this is still for?  Oh yeah, the ADULT’s VANITY, because we cared too much about winning AND losing, as NOBODY wants to be a L-O-S-E-R, and so, we’d resorted to lowly methods to win, and in the end, the KIDS are the ones who suffered, for the adults’ mistakes, and that, is not all…

The Adults Were the Ones Who’d Cheated, and the Children Ended Up, Paying the Price

This, is the MOST serious FOUL PLAY in the Youth Baseball League, and GUESS W-H-O is to blame???  The ADULTS, of course, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

The Youth Baseball Cup of Guo-Cheng Hsieh had the most SERIOUS violation of rules, three teams out of four that had made it into the quarter finals, were found, to have cheated, the champion team from Mingdao Elementary School got disqualified from entering into the Asian Youth Baseball League, and are banned to enter for two years; the second place and third place winners from Taoyuan and the fourth place from Kaohsiung were banned from competing for a year, and, the enter score board was cancelled too.

Mingdao Elementary School’s team had done wonderfully since the inner city competitions from March, it’d represented the city of Taipei and won first place in the Guo-Cheng Hsieh Cup, and gotten the rights to represent the nation; but last week, the head coach from Li-Shing Elementary School, Chang stated, that Mingdao had put three players who were transfer students on the team, and the rule was that transfer students can’t compete for two years.

The Student Baseball Leagues, after its investigations, confirmed that Mingdao Elementary School had indeed, broken the rules, and they’d punished the players and the coach too, banned them for competitions for two years’ term; Wu, the coach, had been fouling out before, he’d allowed transfer students to play on the fields before too, and he was suspended from his coaching post by the Taipei City Department of Education.

After this, the league started zooming in on ALL eleven teams, and found that the second place school, Zhongping Elementary School, the fourth place winner, Zhongzhen elementary both had ONE transfer student who should sit out for two years’ time.  The committee looked into it, and found that it was both schools’ first offenses, and the school admitted to wrongdoing, and so, they were banned from the competitions for a year each.

And, the kids may just BE playing for the LOVE of the game, and yet, because of the school officials bad behaviors, they were B-A-N-N-E-D?  Is that fair to the kids?  Of course N-O-T, and, what would your bad behaviors teach your students here?  That you should weasel the best you can, and keep your fingers crossed for NOT getting caught?  But if you got caught, then, you will P-A-Y!!!

That Student Had Falsified His Grade Records

Tossing the HONOR SYSTEM out the W-I-N-D-O-W here, written by a retired school official, translated…

Awhile back, I was standing in line at the convenience supermart, getting copies, it shocked me to discover that the middle school student in front of me is copying his exam scores, with alterations to the standings and the grades, and, because there’s a signature box for the parents, the intentions were clear, to change the grades so it looked genuine, have the parents sign for it, and then, turn it back into the school.

Right then and there, I felt a surge of emotions, in order to fulfill the parents’ expectations, the individual is committing perjury from a very young age, what’ll happen to him when he gets older?  And, taking a look at the alteration of grade points at the recent college entrance exams, this made me think, that maybe, this is what they’ll be doing in the future!

And so, education, along with everything E-L-S-E had gone to the D-O-G-S, I mean, it is understandable why the junior high kid is altering his grades, because he didn’t do too well, and he needs his parents’ signature, and, he knows what’s coming, making such a low grade, and so, in order to escape punishment, he thought of altering his grades, to falsify his own records, and, chances of him being caught by someone who would say something, set him straight would be slim to none, and, the chance of this individual committing some high-time crimes in the future is a HELL of a L-O-T higher, compared to the people who didn’t alter their grades, and, you still can’t blame the junior high student, can you?  Of course not, because, what does he know, he’s only a T-E-E-N-A-G-E-R…

When Difficult Parents Became Test-Takers, Children Can’t Grow Up

Another “scenario”, and NO, it won’t BE the last “case” either, of how OVERBEARING parents become the O-B-S-T-A-C-L-E in their children’s live, translated…

As a student, as a child, as an assistant professor who’s involved in the registration processes in the college, I really DO have to say something.

The season for registration into colleges is right around the corner, and, I’d been involved in this process of registration assistance for five years, and, each and every year, I’d get a LOT of calls from parents, asking what the specific major is about, and how to prepare for an interview?  And, what’s the outlook for a certain major?  What do we do, if we can’t log on to the online registration services?  And, most of these calls were from parents, calling on behalf of their offspring, instead of students themselves.  This, had become all too confusing that it makes me wonder IF the parents are registering for classes, or are the students going to take the classes?  And, this year, there was even this parent who started sobbing on the phones because she’s worried.

And, of course, I’d had to answer all of their inquiries with patience and courtesy, but, I couldn’t help but wonder: why don’t the parents just let the students handle their own affairs?  It is understandable how parents would want to protect their offspring, but, does it mean that you don’t care about your kids, if you don’t handle things FOR them?

In my own growth processes and the cognition that I’d required, I’d gotten this belief of how I need to handle things on my own, as young as when I was in the elementary years, I’d taken it on my shoulders to pack my books for the schooldays, and, when I grew older, I’d made the decisions of what major to consider when going to college, and what job and the plans I have for life, my mother never helped me.  When I’d forgotten to bring my homework or materials to school, my mother would NEVER bring the items to school for me, and when I told her that I’d get punished, this, is what she replied, “You’re the one to have forgotten to pack whatever it is that you may need, therefore, you MUST take the consequences for so doing.”

When I’m older, when I started having to pick out a field of study, of course, I’d consulted my mother, and, of course, she’d given me her opinions, but, afterwards, she’d always added, “this is your life, your choice, your future, you must take responsibilities for your own decisions in life.” And, it’s this sort of an education that had given me the chance to learn to become independent, to learn to shoulder responsibilities for myself, and, of course, when I’d mis-stepped, I’d get punished, or I’d fall down and get a “scraped knee”, but, all of that had become a precious part of my coming-of-age.

And still, a LOT of parents held strong to the beliefs that the children’s interests don’t matter when they pick a major, so long as they’d made high enough scores, they should major in electronic engineering, electronics, material, along with other “popular” majors, so long as they can find a high-paying job in the field of technology, even IF they have to deal with the work that bored the HECK out of them for ten to twelve hours a day, it’s still fine, and that children’s interests OR whether or NOT their “fitted” to go into the field isn’t even considered.  The truth of the matter is this, a LOT of parents still blindly believed that getting admitted into a “hot” major is the most important thing, and, those parents who are used to scheduling everything for their offspring, even forced the children to GO on the path that they’d chosen for them, those parents are still growing in numbers.

After being involved in the registration process for five years, I’d observed a LOT of parents and students-to-be, I really want to tell them all, that is it in the best interests of the child if you schedule and plan the roads that they are to take in life, to FORCE them on that path, is it really good for the children?  And, the kids getting labeled as “strawberries”, without the sense of responsibilities OR the right kind of attitudes in learning OR at work, without knowing H-O-W to interact with others, is this the parents’ faults OR is it the child’s?

It’s still NOT our (the children’s???) faults, because you, stupid parents are too desperate in trying to PREVENT us, your OFFSPRING from making whatever mistakes you may have had made when you were younger, so, you BLOCKED us from our own lives, by planning our futures, mapping it ALL out, making sure that we’d followed those “rules” to the “t”, and, in the end, you’d still end up hurting US more than helping, so, just LET go of your DEATH GRIPS on them, and let them roam wild and free, and have F-A-I-T-H that they’d turn out fine, if you’d taught them well…