Extended Essays Academic Honesty and

This is a brief story about a student, a culture, a parent, a school, and how those factors interact to create confusion regarding the meaning of academic honesty

Digital image. Upozornění Na Přesměrování. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb

The Scenario The extended essay draft for this student was submitted and indicated use of sources without acknowledgement. The supervisor comments to this affect during the drafting process. The student doesn’t make significant change to fix this problem in a subsequent revision.

After the final internal submission date, which is four months before the official IB extended essay submission date, the supervisor notifies administration that he/she does not feel comfortable signing the declaration saying that they can confirm that this is the student’s own work.

The issues are the student came to the IB program at our school from another school and has significant skill deficits (analysing texts, summarizing and synthesizing ideas as well as English language acquisition deficits).

Because the school is relatively new (six years old), and is not able to screen prospective students adequately (because the school’s owner wants students in chairs), teachers feel responsible for the success of the student even though they may not have the necessary background to adequately do the full program.

Certificate students are left without a full diploma because we aren’t fully accredited, so the only way for a student to graduate is by completing the full IB diploma which means completion of the extended essay.

Therefore, the IB coordinator and the head of department of the extended essay area have subsequently worked with the student to legitimize the essay but this, in essence, leads to problems of the work now being the work of the head of department and IB coordinator.

The Conundrum Where is the line? When has a school crossed that line and given too much help to a student on their extended essay? What about the schools that claim that every other school is doing it so we have to do it too so our students don‘t look bad? What about parents that hire people to complete their child‘s extended essay or internal assessments in the rest of the courses and claims that this is a cultural acceptable practice where they come from?