There are so many more air quality issues than just mold and CO2. If that's all they've tested for, they are just scratching the surface.
I recommend doing some research, perhaps contacting an indoor air quality expert, to learn more about possible culprits, and then request tests for those. Certain VOCs, for instance, could cause problems.
You can also purchase a high-quality air filter (see IQ Air or Austin Air) and see if that helps. But it would be better to first know what you're dealing with.
I suspect the principal is downplaying it b/c there aren't other places to move these classrooms, and fears that looking too closely at the issue will reveal a serious problem that needs to be dealt with.
I'd be particularly concerned for your students. Children tend to be more vulnerable to air quality issues since they are still developing.
1
A windowless basement room? Such apartments are generally illegal. Why should professionals and children be subjected to this environment?
File a complaint immediately with whom ever you need to. And tell parents to complain to all levels of administration, anonymously or not, as well.
Do it anonymously
5
Re: letter 3, I suggest requesting a health hazard evaluation from NIOSH. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/hhe/request.html
1
How about automated tools, spelling and grammar checkers, many of which also have autocorrect features, as well as other nice writing tools that suggest revisions even in the absence of errors?
I think writing skills can be improved by having someone point out your mistakes and suggesting corrections.
3
So why isn't everyone calling for the adult students who seek out "editing" services to be tossed in jail and the key thrown away? They are doing exactly the same thing that Felicity Huffman did--paying someone else to do work presented as the student's own. And, yes, these students also are taking the place of other students who could do the work themselves.
5
It's unethical for any student to turn in a paper that was written by another person, period, no matter how much of the paper is affected by the non-author. That constitutes plagiarism, usually a reason for expulsion from a college or university.
Any student who is unable to write a coherent, organized paper that clearly demonstrates understanding of the subject being written about should seek out the campus writing center.
Being in college means learning how to show that one has the abilities required to remain in an environment of ideas. The truth is, some people just don't belong in college and that's fine--learn a skill or a trade instead.
P.S. I'm a retired college instructor of history.
9
I once worked as a secretary to a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. One of the graduate students was writing his Ph.D. dissertation, and his writing was terrible. (How did he ever get admitted to the graduate program?) Upon reading various drafts of the graduate student's dissertation, the professor got tired of revising and organizing the sentences and asked the student to hire a technical writer to help him write his dissertation. I don't know whether the student did this. Ironically, the student was a native English speaker, but the professor (a very smart guy!) was not a native speaker of English.
4
Environmental issues, especially in areas such as basements without windows and other forms of regular ventilation, can be extremely dangerous. Those confined to those areas as their daily work space for months or years at a time are especially vulnerable. The group needs to meet offsite, find a single doctor all can agree on to administer a battery of identical tests on each member of the group to determine if there is a pattern. The union should be involved to ensure both the contract is honored and that all environmental and legal requirements are met by the school. If the situation is serious enough the group should hire an attorney specializing in workplace environmental hazards. Ddpending on the circumstances, they may be able to get a high quality firm to take the case on a contingency fee basis--if there is no financial recovery, there are no legal fees. In other cases, with no money changing hands, the prevailing side can collect its legal fees as part of any settlement or judgment. a good law firm will know how to guide the teachers claiming harm through the maze of handling both the rules of getting justice through court of law and the rules for getting justice through media coverage that will inform the court of public opinion.
8
Teacher, your ethical concern should not be for yourself. You can quit and find another job. What about the poor children? They are stuck there! Go to the parents, go to the media, go to the school board, the mayor, and be ready to receive any repercussions on your career/reputation, in order to keep the kids safe & healthy!!
6
@Alyce The teacher can care both about the teacher and about the children, Why shouldn't her health matter, too?
15
The dismissive tone of the response to the third letter writer bothers me.
The ethicist suggests that the letter writer is seeing patterns where none exist, telling her in effect that she is being just a little bit hysterical.
This is offensive and surprising both.
The letter writer made it clear that others are suffering ill effects of the air quality. This is a serious issue. Why would it be treated as though it isn't with the not so subtle message that it's probably (mostly) all in her head?
This is the least helpful response to a question I've seen and the tone takes it from unhelpful to harmful.
22
I do not understand why any students or their teachers are required to attend classes in a windowless basement room.
12
Although there is nothing unethical about being paid to copy edit, it is certainly unethical to copy edit students’ term papers or essays, whether for free or for pay, without the instructor’s knowledge.
In the first instance, one is usually employed by a company to clean up and improve a document intended for a corporate or public audience, and the copy editor is helping to produce the best possible result for the employer.
When the document is a student’s paper, which is intended for an audience if one - the instructor -the copy editor is being paid to improve the student’s grade, probably in violation of the school’s academic code of conduct. Perhaps the most unethical aspect of this instance is that it prevents students from learning how to become better writers, unlike in a tutorial situation, where students are guided to improve their own work.
I say all this from the perspective of someone who has served as a professional copy editor, a college writing instructor, and a tutor.
13
As a magazine editor, the work of contributors was edited for readability and coherence. Some remarked that these changes gave them insight into how to improve their writing skills. This applies in the query about editing student papers. Assuming the content is left as is but made coherent and readable, there is really no issue. The student presumably did the research and writing, which is the fundamental point of the exercise. There is no cheating involved in editing for the qualities noted here.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
2
@Eduardo B The quality of the writing is also being evaluated. Can the student do the research, come up with ideas, and express them clearly? It's all part of it.
4
@Eric Not to mention, can the student write sentences that are complete, without comma splices, punctuated according to standard written English, and with the words spelled the same way as in the dictionary? Some teachers actually grade based on such trivia.
2
@Eduardo B The difference is that a magazine article is only about content. The reader doesn't care how the work was created and edited to provide it. College papers, on the other hand, are only partly about content (and if a writing class, possibly not about content at all). The goal is, in whole or in part, for the student to learn how to write. How is a professor supposed to know if that goal is being met if someone else has done the work?
4
Re: sick basement in school. Most teacher unions are not aggressive when it comes to supporting a teacher in this situation. It's also hard to garner support from parents who also do not want to go up against a school board, especially in context of a law suit. School boards are usually NOT very supportive of teachers and students in a "sick school" scenario for many self-serving reasons.......That teacher(s) needs 1, 2nd, 3rd medical opinion. Do NOT let the situation progress. There is undoubtedly mold in a basement venue (ya think ? ) and mold illnesses become chronic, ie with allergies and asthma, and even after surgery, which can be precarious. After complaints, your evaluations WILL suddenly go south, and, if you do find an attorney to go up against the school board, it'll be a hard slog to get anywhere against the big guns that protect school boards from such lawsuits. Find another teaching job and be vigilant about the school plant. The above happened to me, I was given 6 months to live due to totally occluded sinuses (had to mouth breathe), my evals went bad, then the whole school was gutted due to being a sick school, and the school board still wouldn't transfer me to another school. I quit. The surgery and its aftermath were horrific. Run, don't walk, away from the basement. Notice all your parents and then leave. Let parents decide, but hopefully they will back you if kids are sick too. Mine were also and no school personnel at any level cared.
9
Not sure why our dear Ethicist didn’t recommend that worker in the basement call OSHA and make an anonymous complaint.
25
About 10 years ago I worked in a ‘trailer’ at a National Lab in California. There was an awful smell in the trailer that was making my co worker and me sick. We complained to health services and to the labs EH&S office and nothing was done. On morning our division director stopped by to talk to us and he was sick the rest of the day. Needless to say we were moved out of trailer a few days later and it was torn down.
When it comes to the health and safety of employees I don’t understand why employers are so reluctant to fix the problem. In my case it was only after our division director complained that anything was done.
17
@Glencora "When it comes to the health and safety of employees I don’t understand why employers are so reluctant to fix the problem."
Answer: money. The fix could be costly, and ordering the fix is an admission of responsibility for the origin of the problem, for which one may be sued.
6
As a former college professor, let me say that learning to write well is a critical skill, regardless of the student's major. And employers should expect a college educated employee to have good skills in both verbal and written communication. Good ideas are nothing without the ability to organize them into a coherent and persuasive argument. Let me also say this: I hated grading student papers. Most were poorly written, and I found myself wanting to edit them. The problem is that student papers are graded and handed back. There is no opportunity for the student to improve them, and thus to learn, without an incredible investment of time by the faculty--who is either a poorly paid adjunct or who is busy writing a grant to cover his/her salary and research.
9
As a retired community college English teacher, I'd like to respond. Lots of professional people hire proof readers, editors, speech writers, etc. to check their work prior to submission. There is nothing unethical about doing this. It does become a problem when the student claims that the final project is entirely their work, but this is a fault of the student, not the "editor." The solution? In addition to out of class assignments, the teacher needs to also have in class tests or writing assignments. When the external and internal products are dramatically different, it is time to have the student come to your office and discuss the discrepancy. The internet is ubiquitous and cannot be controlled. It is the responsibility of the teachers to ascertain the proficiency of their students.
13
Take your respiratory symptoms seriously and forget all this silly advice about respiratory issues being “common”. Don’t listen to the ethicist’s advice to trust the school either — they have every motivation to downplay, change or hide test results. Go straight to your union and read up on the laws in your state.
43
As an Occupational Therapist who has treated ex- school teachers now living with chronic illnesses from mold in classrooms, I STRINGLY urge more air testing & more medical testing for teachers; and, get long term disability insurance, in case you cannot continue teaching! Do not trust School personnel to have your best interests as their priority!
24
Of course it is cheating!
20
@Maria Rolz de Cuestas You said all that needs to be said!! I can't understand why some of the comments here are so long and, in some cases, forgiving of the practice of editing a student's work submitted for academic credit in an educational institution.
5
@Maria Rolz de Cuestas'
I'm with you.
The LW is being hired to 'organize material,', which is a key part of the student's assignment. The student's writing also reveals his/her reasoning, the ability to select and understand the appropriate material and forge rational arguments. I used to have, in the old typewriter days, no problem with having someone else type up a paper. That has nothing to do with thinking for the student. This does.
That it is grossly unfair to other students is pretty obvious.
5
@cheryl Hmm. The student is at school, where, presumably, they are there to learn how to do things, not enter with the skills already in place, true? Does the prof have an obligation, then, to read, make comments,and return to student for revisions - and, therefore, become an educator and not just a grader? That's what I did.
1
Even exceptional published writers rely on editors. I think the issue at hand is dependent on the context in which the work is helped by an editor. If a student is working towards a degree where language skills, style, and quality of writing are an integral requirement, then editing should be minimal. But if the quality of the writing is less important than the concepts or knowledge of subject matter, then I don't think it's unethical to seek help with grammar and composition...the editor isn't creating the author's concepts or scientific research. In cases like this the student might include a note that she/he used an editor.
Help with application letters also depends on the situation. If a student asks a teacher or parent to read, comment, or correct glaring errors in their letter, I'd respect the student's concern and effort to make it as good as it can be...as long as they're the one who's written the letter. Asking for help is essential to learning and a desirably quality in a prospective student or employee.
I taught college in a field where writing was not integral to the course, except for a few papers where I'd ask for their observations and opinions on an art exhibition or a lecture. Half my students were foreign born. Their grammar and spelling was understandably weak, but their ideas were thoughtful and intelligent. The efforts of my native English speakers, however, were often in-cohesive, vapid, and downright pitiful by comparison...but they spell-checked.
8
Yes, professionals hire editors, and that fact is well-known. I’ve never seen an employee handbook that forbids this.
It’s hugely different from students who are SUPPOSED to do their own work, and have probably signed pledges that they will do so. It is unethical for these kids to hire editors, and it is unethical to accept money to help these students cheat.
I don’t understand why so many commenters think it’s cool to let the ability to pay determine who does better in school.
5
Prof. Appiah's advice on paper revision should be taken with a cup of salt in consideration of his position in the EDU hierarchy. He has taught at august institutions and been rewarded with salaries that are multiples of the average household income in the US. In contrast, the 75% of college teachers who engage in tutoring and essay help are paid $1000 per credit hour. In composition courses this works out to 25 cents per essay graded so that the prof can choose between defrauding his life or delivering no real instruction. The teaching principles that Appiah feels should rule his starving colleagues show no sensitivity to the real structural problems of which he is a prime unethical example. As usual, his bourgeois sentiments have no statistical or broadly analytic basis and are - existentially - deeply hypocritical.
7
“Bourgeoise?” This reads like a college sophomore’s paper.
1
@dan Oh good grief. That's a whole lotta words. I hope you aren't an English teacher, but in case you are, ask yourself how a sentiment would ever be expected to have statistical or analytic basis. And, "existentially-deeply-hypocritical," whaat?
3
@dan
Wow! You certainly have an axe to grind, although I've yet to figure out how your rant fits in with Prof. Appiah's answer -- unless it's to suggest that as an underpaid English professor you'd be thrilled to have had someone else do the work of improving the paper so that you didn't have to use your poorly-paid time to actually do your job.
2
If the teacher is ill due to his/her work place environment, has noticed the employer, the problem persists and this has been medically confirmed then the answer is simple. File a workers' compensation claim, get an attorney, sit back and collect your money.
13
@Bring Back Barry
How naive. "get an attorney" - to go against a school board, especially if the attorney is local, has kids in the system or knows school board members, etc etc. - not a productive move. "collect money" - what money ? school districts are not known anywhere for awarding damages for anything ! the teacher is lucky if he/she has decent health insurance to cover medical / surgical bills.
1
I taught college English as a grad student at a western Canadian U in the 70s, and came up with my fake writing detector in the form of an introductory short, ungraded and completely personal essay, usually about the student's own experience of "identifying with" a fictional character in books, movies, TV, etc. These were generally well accepted, natural prose compositions that might even engage them. Later graded work that gapped up too much in quality was a ground for conversation - the first graded assignment was in time for the drop date, and though I faced a couple of "outraged" young sports in my office, it never had to go to academic discipline.
14
#3 my physician friends have said once their patient(s) have noted the work place environment concerns, and their patient(s) have continued to be sick, that they as licensed physicians under our state law (California) have a legal responsibility to report their concerns to both the country health department, and the California department of public health.
A similar situation happened at a senior service office where because of last years heavy rain, leaks in the roof, soaked carpets a mold issue developed that was never fixed and workers got sick. But it was the county health department who in turn notified the state that got everyone moved to a new building. The term 'lawsuit' was key.
19
@Beth Grant DeRoos
School districts are their own special fifedoms and, in places, wield almost autonomous power over workers and students, curriculum, plant issues, etc. Teachers are often treated as expendable entities.........
Suing a school board does not protect one's job, tenured or not.
California is not like the rest of the country.
1
The freelance editor should be ashamed for even asking the question if it’s wrong for him to edit (extensively) student papers. Of course it is.
I don’t care if they are non-native English speakers or not. It does not matter. They’re here, the course is in English. Learn it. Both content and form matter. How do you even know if the student knows the material if he/she cannot communicate it? And writing is important in all professions. Don’t enable a problem, send them to tutoring and ESL classes.
If you cannot write a proper paper, you don’t deserve to pass the course. Period. Perhaps this practice of students hiring out academic work partially accounts for the abysmal writing skills I see among colleagues.
31
@KathyGail
Having been a teacher for more than 40 years at educational institutions from continuing education to prestigious universities in two countries every one of which had a high proportion of students whose first language was not English - Kathy you seem to leave no job for the teacher but to read correctly and judge. Not my idea of a good teacher.
3
To the copy editor: this is cheating. Once you are reorganizing a paper it is no longer the student's work. It sounds like students submit a mess to you that you will then make coherent. This is writing their papers for them. It is unethical and could get them expelled. Also, should a professor then require them to write for an in-class exam they may be discovered to be cheating.
18
@Tai L- I agree with you that extensive editing is cheating because it is not the work of the original author. However, Harper Lee is credited with writing To Kill a Mockingbird when it is clear that her editor did so much to change it that it is barely her work This explains why she never produced another book. In this world, cheating is selectively enforced.
9
@S.L.
I believe you (I disliked that book). I'm a writer myself, as well as a copy-editor. One of my duties here in Silicon Valley is to ghost-write thought leadership articles, blogs, policy pronouncements, letters, and speeches for C-level executives. I often write these from scratch; they give their feedback. I finalize them, and into print they go under the executive's authorship.
When I publish short stories under my own name, I sometimes receive minor suggestions from the editors; that often improve the piece.
I have written a novel. The publisher's editor insists on some mostly cosmetic changes, and I will probably jump through those hoops because I want it published.
What I dread the most is that friends and family have asked me to write (often from scratch) and/or polish essays for them or their children, including college admission essays and even term papers. These people are relentless. If I refuse, their bitterness knows no bounds. Some are close family. It's as if I am a means to an end that is extremely important. If I withhold my skills, they would feel I have injured them or their kids. It's difficult to do the right thing when the consequences are so severe.
11
@Trista, people almost always have reasons for doing things that are wrong. If it were not so, far fewer wrongs would be done than are. The people you claim as family or friends are clearly bullying you. That is wrong, and your letting them do it is wrong, too. If they would injure you for being honest, they aren't much in the way of family or friends.
8
Is this even a question? Hiring someone to edit your papers and pass it off as your own? Is this ethical? NO!!! It’s cheating! Felicity Huffman revisited.
26
This is in response to the teachers teaching in the dungeon. CALL OSHA immediately.
34
@Nannie Bee
That effort is time consuming and people get sicker waiting for a federal agency to act. (especially now, if OSHA still exists !.........)
School boards aren't threatened by much, I guarantee. Any teacher out there will agree. Unions are weak. Jobs are threatened by speaking up. The general public has no idea..............we teach to the test and make sure the front office doesn't have to deal with our kids....it's a survival game. Tho we still teach because we love the kids and our subject matter ..........
1
@Ellie...OSHA still exists in my state. I made a call to them about 5 months ago and they had someone on the scene within 24 hours. I'm happy to report that the issue was resolved ASAP. It too was a toxic issue. I hope that OSHA remains in existence for a very long time because, as you mentioned, we must continue to protect our children and the general public as well as our environment.
6
@Nannie Bee
I was being sarcastic about OSHA still existing. When I had to contact them, there was a lot of paperwork and time and unbeknownst to me until only months were left to my life, I was going toxic, still showing up for school. Many agencies, as you must know, are now eviscerated due to the current administration......that aside, I don't think the public really knows much about what insulated entities (and protected by big gun attorneys) school districts are ........ teachers have few rights, no matter what the law says and unions have diminished financial resources to protect them, even if they do try (unions have to remain in favor with school boards for collective bargaining purposes.)
1
On #1, a curmudgeon's thought. "Back in the day" when penmanship was part of the curriculum and typewriters were fairly thin on the ground, the editing and polishing described was very rare. Unless the person editing and polishing was also an accomplished forger, the instructor could tell if the paper submitted was not the student's work.
On #2, every place I've worked had a HR policy that forbade writing letters of recommendation. The ethical problem didn't exist.
On #3, I'd suggest you also get the fire marshal and state education department in on this. A public gathering in a windowless basement seems to have more than a few fire safety issues. Also, at least in my state, schools are required to provide ventilation and climate control in classroom spaces. As I recall, the ONLY student spaces that lacked windows were the gym showers in middle and high school (I said I was a curmudgeon).
As an aside, I understand how air quality can effect your health. I don't have any autoimmune conditions, but on at least one occasion I had to leave work, sick, owing to the fumes in a newly painted work space that didn't have opening widows or the HVAC running.
14
Re copy-editing student papers: ask Felicity Huffman.
16
What about software like Grammarly? Is it considered OK to use? Is it a gray area?
2
@AncientHistorian
Why not? Grammarly helps you edit for clarity. It doesn't generate ideas out of whole cloth.
4
And it’s cheap enough that most any student can afford to use it, just as they could afford to buy a dictionary.
1
@D
Why not, indeed?
I love it and others like it.
But I wondered if some academic curmudgeons disagree.
1
Re the first letter, as an employer often involved in the recruitment process, this letter was eye-opening for me. We have brought people in for interviews, and in some cases made job offers, on the basis of paperwork showing good grades received in advanced degrees at top rate universities in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. (The candidates in this situation were generally Asian, and not Asian-Australian, etc.) And then we have found out that, in person, the candidate found it difficult to complete a single sentence in grammatically correct English, and that the written work was atrocious. Clearly these candidates must have gotten some “help” along the way. (I had always blithely assumed that maybe their good grades just reflected a history of doing well on multiple choice exams.). It’s a pity that nowhere along the way did they sit down and do the hard work to improve their English language communication skills. It’s sad, because many of them were clearly bright and motivated. We couldn’t hire them, even with their impressive cv’s.
Also, I should add that I work in financial services, a highly regulated industry where there is lots of (other peoples!) money around. We really value employees who can understand and follow rules and who do not try to cut corners for their own advantage.
Doing a student’s work for him doesn’t help the student because he/she doesn’t learn. Eventually they will be found out.
18
@Expat London
I work for major enterprises that hire people who are talented and accomplished in their technology fields, but may be substandard writers.
Sometimes they don't speak English from birth; other times they are English speakers but just write poorly or have no confidence in their ability to express themselves convincingly and grammatically.
My job is to make sure that these people sound good in print. They are an important investment for the company.
But I don't have to make a judgment as to their techological or scientific credentials. I assume that due diligence was performed to ensure that people really did their research and earned their degrees.
There's no reason that a brilliant scientist or engineer brought up in another country should founder on English grammar and syntax. I don't see the people I support as frauds; they just need help to make the language work for them.
English is a fiendishly difficult, subtle and tricky language. Frankly, Vladimir Nabokov is the only writer I've ever known of who truly mastered and dominated it despite not being born to it.
6
@Trista
My husband was recently treated for a life-threatening Illness. The physician assigned was known to be a brilliant researcher in his field who had won several awards for his research. He emigrated to the United States twelve years ago and completed a fellowship at a prestigious university in the United States. His professional biography included information that he is an internationally published author and a sought-after presenter at international conferences. At our first appointment, we were shocked to find that he could barely speak or write English. We appealed to the hospital, who assigned my husband's care to an English-speaking specialist, but allowed the original doctor to remain on his treatment team. When my husband was hospitalized, the nurses and other direct care staff had difficulty understanding his instructions. I do not doubt that this doctor knew what to do for my husband, but it would have frightening to proceed with this doctor in charge. I suspect he used someone to translate his research and his speeches at conferences. This person needed to make the language work with his patients, their caregivers, and the hospital staff.
4
@Trista Joseph Conrad
1
If you're correcting and revising papers--making ideas clearer, etc., you're not just "punching it up," as the odd phrase of the columnist has it. You're essentially altering the work of a student and increasing quality and the grade of a student whose actual work didn't earn the grade. I think you know this or you wouldn't need permission to do it. If you don't want to help students cheat, find another gig.
9
#1
No pun
Even highly educated native English writers have obvious quirks that give their writing a specific 'signature'.
I desperatly (sp) need spell check.
Unless a student uses the same 'cheat' for all things written his ruse will become obvious.
Not good!
I double space because i have poor eyesight almost always missing the shift to capital I.
Writers do improve by writing a lot with rewriting.
I admire Hemingway's style in writing.
Admire your own.
ymmv
5
I was in exactly the same situation the teacher was, being forced to work in a basement room with mold and no ventilation, resulting in migraines and respiratory issues. I complained verbally and in writing to our direct supervisor, the principal, and the assistant superintendent in charge of buildings. Two physicians wrote letters (neurologist and internist). I presented a very moldy piece of construction paper we found when we moved two cabinets. Nothing was done.
The sooner the writer realizes that nothing will be done, the better off she'll be. She and the other teachers are expendable. She needs to find another job ASAP. Going public will result in her not being hired anywhere else.
The ethicist's response is borderline insulting. The teacher who wrote in isn't the only one affected; she mentions two others. She also mentions affected students. Yet he implies her symptoms are questionable. Does he think there's some sort of hysterical transfer of symptoms going on?
Public school teachers and students often live under some very bad conditions that politicians at local, state, and national levels wouldn't tolerate for two days. The ethicist is naive.
39
@Linda it’s been known to happen, most recently with American and Canadian diplomats in Cuba and the purported sonic attack.
3
@Linda
Thank you,Linda. I'm totally with you having gone thru the same experience. Thank you for your comments.
Mine are not family friendly........yes, the ethicist has obviously little experience in public school plants and with the power dynamics within any school district.
1
Our son was sick every school year with bronchitis and pneumonia when he was in elementary school. We thought he had allergies and was susceptible to lung illnesses. It turned out his entire school had a widespread contamination of a dangerous mold behind the walls. The entire school was shut down for a year for remediation and remodeling to remove the mold. Your symptoms warrant further investigation.
31
To LW #3–What about the students? You say that some of them have symptoms as well. If you started talking in terms of their welfare, enlisting the help of the parents and social service agencies, you might get somewhere. If the environment is indeed unhealthy, the welfare of the children is being endangered and there are laws against that. You are an adult, you can leave, you are old enough to take care of yourself. Someone needs to start caring about those kids!
18
Several years ago, one of my niece's daughters attended a school where a lot of students were getting sick. My niece and a few other students' mothers made a big stink about it. Tests were done and it turned out the building was contaminated with PCB. The school was closed. The child is still dealing with the effects of her exposure, and probably will have to do so for the rest of her life. I wonder how many teachers knew there was something wrong---and how long they may have known.
15
Some states do not allow classrooms without windows. Your union should check on this for you. You are in a basement; do you have a way to escape in case of fire? The union should be spearheading an investigation into this problem. They can consult with a lawyer to determine what steps can be taken. Our union handles all of our health and safety concerns which are not remedied by the district. The situation should be brought before the school board at a public meeting by your union leadership as the health and welfare of the students are involved.
19
As someone who taught college Freshman English (writing) to both American and non-native speakers, I can attest that you are doing the student no favor by editing his or her work. Besides the ethical issue bordering on plagiarism, you deny the instructor the opportunity of working with the student over time. He or she can track development (if any) or target specific areas that need improvement. An "editor" interferes with this process and actually handicaps the student. If an "editor" tutors a student over an entire semester and limits guidance in areas beyond of the papers, that's a very different relationship. These incremental advances (if any) are then observed by the instructor. For the student, it would be a team-taught class.
5
As far as being paid to revise students papers, that is an absolute no.
Paying someone to revise your college papers is against policy in every student handbook. Such violation could result in being expelled.
This level of dishonesty has become a major theme in academia. Parents and students pay people to write college admission essays, papers and theses, which is cheating, unethical, dishonest, and ultimately does a disservice to the student.
13
"is simply to elevate the finished result." Seriously ? Talk about deluding oneself.
And then we have this: "In this case, you would be depriving them of the prospect of accurate assessment and peer-to-peer comparison". You are assuming that all students want "accurate assessment and peer-to-peer comparison". Many of them just want to pass, in any way possible. They couldn't care less as to How.
6
I work for a freelance editing service that handles many types of assignments, including articles for academic journals; dissertations and theses; and yes, student papers. (The service specifies that it doesn't do research or add content, but it does rewrite content to make it flow more smoothly and logically.)
Each editor can choose which jobs to take. I don't mind polishing up a thesis, where the author clearly has done all the research and just needs a bit of added clarity (and typo checking), but I find it distasteful to "punch up" student papers. Other editors take those jobs, though.
5
Decades ago, as a grad student in English, I got an official job at my university editing research papers written by foreign PhD students in pharmacology, people who already had PhDs in mathematics. Those papers practically had more mathematical symbols than alphabet letters, more formulas than text. I don’t think there was anything unethical about it — the papers had no English “style,” were not in the least artistically expressive, and basically just set out tons of data (the footnotes were usually to computers that solved the equations). The point is, maybe it would have been unethical had the writer been asked to fix up papers intended for (say) a history class. Perhaps only the nature of the paper being edited can really determine whether the outside editor was being unethical.
6
I don’t think you have any responsibility for policing the students ethics, only your own. Whether society, the college/university, or the student are acting ethically in hiring you is not your concern. Ask yourself only whether you feel you are acting ethically in accepting or rejecting the preferred work.
1
@Lewis Sternberg
Also ask yourself if you understand the concept "aiding and abetting." Then ask yourself how guilt-free you feel.
11
I don't know what state you are living in but if you are in New York State or any state that has a strong teachers union, there are remedies available to you. If your union local has been unresponsive, every local has a field representative who can and, in my experience, will help you.
Let me explain, I was a union local president for twenty years and dealt with kind of problems you wrote about on a number of occasions. Let me also say that the school board rarely will be you ally in these situations. Most members will either not care because the costs involved in solving a problem or because they will take the administrators opinion over yours.
In two cases, the local deffered action to the state-wide union. The union contracted with a enviormental testing firm which tested the air quality and reported significant problems. The school board did not believe the results of the firm hired by the union and contracted another firm Those tests came out even worse. Then, under the threat of legal action, they corrected the problems. Further, in the future, the school district acted differently, solving problems as they developed and hireing contractors who specialized in solving environmental problems rather than having janitorial and maintenance personal try to tackle these jobs.
26
I volunteered, some years ago, as a tutor for two (adult) non-native English speakers, during my participation in a library-sponsored literacy program. (These students really needed an English-as-a-Second Language tutor, but I was not given training for that.) I found that even after I had explained the grammatical changes I was suggesting in the student's exercises, the student often would continue to make the same mistakes in future assignments. As a professional editor, I never accepted editing jobs from college students. I think that the college and university professors need to see the students' actual work.
20
I think the person who asked about the job editing student papers knows perfectly well that it would not be ethical to do this, but s/he is looking for someone to tell him/her it's OK. It isn't.
34
RE: Environmental issues in school basement.
The teacher's union should be able to arrange for independent environment testing (that's why you pay union dues). If the school board has no knowledge of the conditions, then they should be notified immediately, as the health and welfare of students is their concern and duty.
Whether the union notifies the board, the teacher sends a letter, or if they are informed anonymously, they have to be informed.
If independent tests aren't done by the union or school board, then notify a local investigative journalist, associated with a local news station, with a timeline--the dates of who was informed and when and what action, if any, was taken. That may put the heat on them to act.
The health and welfare of the students (and their developing lungs) is paramount. The school board must act. The union is there to protect the teachers, so they need to act too. If there is retaliation for filing a complaint, then get a lawyer because that is illegal.
For now, inform all parties, get the issue resolved quickly and amicably. Most likely the students will have to moved to another location; even if it means portable classrooms set up outside the school. It wouldn't be the first time students had to be moved due to mold or poor ventilation.
24
@Hope Agree with everything you say except that retaliation is real, difficult to prove and even if the teacher wins a suit and the school is found in clear violation of whistleblower treatment in court, it will STILL be difficult for him/ her to get another job. Sad reality. We’ve recently been through that in the Boston area.
21
The first letter has elicited many comments critical of the writer. I'd like to express a point of view which focuses on the fact that many of the students are non-native English speakers.
The obstacles which these people have to overcome are formidable, and the writer is correct in saying that excellent content can be obscured by bad grammar or organization. My own students are nearly all non-native speakers. When they ask me to help, I willingly do so... but under three conditions. The first is that the content and logical organization are all theirs. The second is that they are willing to spend time to learn why grammar, sentence structure, etc are being corrected. The third is that they are willing to admit that they had help with the English corrections.
This has never been a problem, and long term it's proven to be a language benefit for these young men and women who work so hard.
21
@Helen I seems to me, if "they are willing to spend time to learn why grammar, sentence structure etc need to be corrected" , they can take it one step further and re-write their own sentences, redo their own structure. If they are able to do that, with your guidance, they will truly have learned to stand on their own two feet.
6
In regards the basement classroom, not everyone has the same reaction to environmental insults. My wife has serious problems working in our own basement while I have none. But she is highly reactive to almost everything while I am not. If you feel your health is endangered, then forget anonymity - anonymous complaints do not carry half the weight of those where someone puts their own self on the line - and you have an ethical obligation to your students as well as to yourself.
In the meantime, the school has an ethical obligation to both its students and its employees to provide a safe working environment and this basement fix to overcrowding seems like a cheap but poor solution to me. Even a temporary building adjacent to the school would likely be better. But at this point you are only going to get action by shining a public spotlight on the whole situation. I think that is more important than your fear of potential retaliation or limitation of new job opportunities.
9
@Tom Rowe
Ok but if she’s fired or has trouble finding will you support her financially?
9
@Tom Rowe, it's very easy to counsel someone else to sacrifice a career or livelihood. I've risked my work to speak publicly, myself. I wouldn't demand that another do so. I would do my utmost to find a safer way to get the job done first, at least. And there are several other options here, seen in other comments.
9
There are ways to "tutor" without changing someone's original work. My advice to tutors is to put nothing on someone else's paper except a finger--in other words, point out where errors are but let the student figure out how to fix them. Discuss how a sentence could be better organized, or how a word can be changed to something more precise. This is TEACHING, not rewriting, and in my experience, students always improve their own work.
28
@Raggedclause
It appears that the editor is going to be sent the papers for correction. He or she isn't going to meet the writers. He or she is basically doing a rewrite.
5
It is common practice for those not writing in their mother tongue to have papers “language polished.” In fact, when I lived in Switzerland a young colleague and I met weekly at lunch for the purpose of exchanging practice in conversational German for language polishing of her master’s thesis written in English. I also provided this service to various medical researchers before they submitted papers for publication. As a professor in a nursing school where there are foreign born students, I would have no problem with students receiving help with the languaging of their paper as long as the content was their own. Fluency in a language can take many years and even then the written work can have errors.
Sometimes we English speakers have a very limited understanding of the reality and challenges of living in a country where we must communicate verbally and in writing in our non-mother tongue.
14
@Gruezi: The concept of “polishing” a written assignment is all well and good in theory, however, in practice, what happens especially in the medical professions is that colleagues are left to try and decipher what is being reported or recommended when the non-native speaker is actually attempting to perform in what is sometimes a life or death situation.
As a tenured professor of English for more than three decades, I wrestled with the issue of a student non-native speaker’s competency in subject content versus his or her proficiency in conveying and applying that content in writing in a meaningful way to a native speaker. The experience could be heartbreaking and life trajectory determining. In the end, it drove me bats, and I was happy to retire and not to ever be put in the position again of holding a bright, hard working, young person’s future in my
hands.
14
Amazing that the first two questioners are even in a quandary. Giving instruction is one thing, putting corrections to paper and letting the student or applicant pass it off as his own work is entirely different and unjustifiable.
26
@Cca I was thinking it would be ok for the editor to sit down with the student and tutor him or her, but not to make the corrections in the absence of instructing the student.
LW#3 - My children went to a middle school here in Boulder that is also facing air quality issues. Teachers and students have fallen ill while the school district denies culpability. A distinct smell of sewage can be detected throughout the school and now two parents have now filed a lawsuit. For LW#3 I see this as an uphill battle, so I urge you to look for another job while pursuing further action.
As a person who suffers from an autoimmune disorder I can tell you - don't take risks . I'd rather people call me hysterical than lose my health to a school district more concerned with saving money.
54
@Bird That reminds me of something that happened in Pueblo, CO about 10+ years ago. Two employees working in a store detected a sewage smell and called the city to report it. The city workers showed up, but didn't find any leaks or plumbing issues. The following morning, there was a gas explosion that leveled the building and killed the one employee (maybe two, I don't remember) who was there to open the store.
4
For what it is worth in regard to Question One.
For years I was on the faculty of a local college and also on the staff of the college tutoring center. We had many foreign students and students whose first language in the home was not English. Not infrequent were complaints at faulty meetings of my department about the poor quality of papers and other assignments turned in by these students. Send them to the tutoring center, I urged. Other professors I knew in different departments had their students come to the tutoring center to work with me.
The point was for the students to learn and improve. What I showed the students was reflected in a better work product, as the professors hoped it would be. No professor would have minded that one student said to me, "I learned more from you in an hour than I learned from my professor in a month."
47
@Donald Nawi I would just add to this that tutoring—talking a student through the changes you suggest they make to their work—and editing/revising—making changes without explanation (and with no guarantee the busy student will ever even see them)—are two separate things.
9
Regarding #1 - In many countries instructors and students hire persons to edit their English. English is a mix of languages - probably more so than almost any other. It is a mix of grammar rules that can be quite inconsistent; it is understandable that people want help. Read Bryson’s “Mother Tongue” to get a feel for the uniqueness of English. In sum, English is quite a flexible language that is hard for those who haven’t mastered its complexity. To condemn paying for editing help ignores the widespread use of author’s editors in today's academia. Wikipedia has an informative article titled “Author Editing”.
Regarding #3 - Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act are probably the best solution to this problem. When working for a very large public teachers’ retirement system I often cited both Acts when educating administrators about their responsibilities. Many school district administrators didn’t understand that they were obligated to reasonably accommodate employees. Once taught that they could lose substantial Federal and state funding they always looked at options. In this instance the district believes it can't afford to build classrooms that meet code. Contacting the state department of education’s civil rights office where the educator is working can start a solution. In practice, I found that changes were quickly made once a district figured out that accommodating an educator was far cheaper than ignoring a problem.
18
@Jon S
Yes, English is a silly language, but the way to help those students who struggle with it (including native speakers) is not to rewrite the paper and submit as if it was written by that student, but to mark up the paper to show them what is wrong and how to fix it. Maybe it yields the same product, but the process is much different. One is cheating, the other is tutoring.
59
@John
You are correct. There just wasn't enough space to discuss your point. Word has a function called "Review" where it is possible to educate. The downside is that doing so takes a lot of extra time that most folks see as unnecessary and an avoidable cost.
Word's grammar and spell functions all too often confuse those trying to use English. Then, I've wondered whether some of those writing grammar check were using English as a fourth language.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
7
@Jon S
I would hesitate to even use Tracked Changes in Word since the user can simply accept all changes and not even get into it. I'd do a hand-written or PDF markup to make sure the student. That way he or she would need to go through the motions and actually make each change.
13
The point of education is development of the knowledge and abilities of students.
As a retired university teacher, I can only respond to my own way to avoid the problem of "ghosts" in the system.
That is, to assign the topics of papers that relate directly and uniquely to the content of classes and require the student to take extensive notes on class discussions.
Paying attention in class does matter.
Cliffs notes, etc., with conventional questions used by ghosts, are irrelevant to the unique assignments.
My aim was to develop the minds of the students.
If a student has a command of the subject and just feels in need of an editor, I had/have no problem with that.
If, however, a student, having paid close attention to the content of the class, cannot transmit to the writer the actual content of the class, it will stick out like a sore thumb.
At that point, my response was to ask the student simply to write a new paper that reflected the actual content of the course.
Let the student feel the need to foster her/his own intellectual growth and work hard to achieve that.
23
Shouldn't LW2's question be what his ethical responsibility is knowing his recommendation was made by a competitor w/o disclosure? Does he have an obligation to inform the granting organization of this conflict of interest? It would've been a more interesting discussion.
7
If the student is in the room with you and listening to why you make corrections, that's teaching. If the student is not there, then you are doing his work, and that's prohibited.
It's a bit different when you are editing a book for a writer, but even then you return the document with the corrections and suggestions marked so the writer can ok them. This is true of editing electronic documents.
18
The college is testing both the student's knowledge of the subject & ability to express it in English. LW1 intends to provide several editorial services - copy, structural, and content - to students for whom English is not their first language. LW1 plans to help students cheat.
Given that LW1 absolves himself of any ethical responsibility in his final sentence, one wonders why he consulted The Ethicist.
28
School - mold. It's time for a science project where you show the children how things can grow in a petri dish. They are quite cheap ($15 for 25), and you can have several of the kids place a thumbprint or touch a leaf or grass on some of the dishes but be sure to leave three or four of them open, and untouched "as a control". Place the four untouched petri dishes where they will not accidentally become contaminated. Wait a few days. If you have significant growth in the "control" dishes do not mention it to the students, but document it.
I am still amazed that they can have classes in a windowless room below the grade of the soil. Surprised that none of the parents made a fuss on parent's night... To me, that just screams fire and safety hazard, but I am old, and I would be worrying about vapors coming from the floor drains among other things.
73
@John I didn't understand why the ethicist belittled this issue. A windowless molded room doesn't cease to be a windowless molded room because management doesn't see it that way.
15
It's not an excuse, but the administration's resistance to doing anything may well be driven by a lack of suitable places to move the class (why else would classes be held in a windowless room in the basement?) and the cost to resolve the problem. Not having space to move the class somewhere is understandable and there is no quick, available solution. Cost should only be a concern as it applies to selecting the approach to fixing the problem (fix the basement or add new above-ground rooms or build new school). All this assumes that the issue is real and not an overreaction on the teachers' parts.
5
@John
I'm thinking that the administration could move its offices down there and free up an above-ground space for learning.
4
This was really a poor answer to #3. Local and state health officials, as well as OSHA, should be notified of this environmental health threat to students and teachers.
62
@Marla
Absolutely, but the complaint should be made by the union.
34
From what we are told by the story, the union leader should be taking the lead here.
7
LW #1: Is it ethical to use a spell-check or grammar-check? Is the student papers in question for an English Comp class or other kinds of reporting or research? Would the editor/organizer be changing the content, or commenting/editing the form? When I was taking education classes (and now am a retired teacher) one concept that stuck with me is: don't evaluate what you don't teach - if I'm not teaching composition, I should restrict my scoring (tho' not my comments) to the content.
@Roger
LW1 makes no distinction between the many types of editing services - copy, content, development, structural - and therefore, seems to be both a novice who doesn't understand the difference in editorial functions (and pricing) nor the fundamental principle that the ability to communicate knowledge of a subject in English is a criteria for the passing the course and most likely, a requirement for future jobs.
6
@knitfrenzy " (T)he ability to communicate knowledge of a subject in English is a criteria for the passing the course" - is that explicitly or implicitly stated in the course syllabus? It should be - most course descriptions are woefully vague.
Grammar- and Spell Check are available to all students nowadays. Private editors-for-pay are not.
For letter writer 3, it would be a good idea to get an air-purifier with a hepa filter straight away. These are inexpensive and remove mould and pollutants. It won't help with the high CO2 though.
15
@Madeleine
You may want to get an air quality meter. It will provide particulate matter (PM) levels which would be elevated by mold or leaking exhaust from a boiler if there is one in the basement. They are available through Amazon (what isn't?).
12
Regarding the teachers working in the basement: You've made your problems known to the decision makers in the building to no avail. Now it's time to call the Health Department, describe everyone's symptoms, and request a health inspection. Not complicated.
51
@Voter
And then it's time for the teacher to get ready to go on unemployment. Everything she does will be nit-picked until she quits in desperation or from exhaustion. Eventually, way down the road, the problem will be solved, but she'll be long gone. Whistle blowers don't last long in public schools, and unions often do little for individuals.
6
@Linda
So? If they are out of job, they can find another. Do you think it's better to suffer maybe lifelong health consequences?
As an aside, it's shocking to me that conditions like that exist in the first place. Why is a first-world country - the best in the world, as Americans so often claim - so unwilling to invest in its public schools?
2
@Jolanta
I'm not sure what PL stands for as your residence. Is it Poland? Here in most states there is an overabundance of teachers, so jobs are hard to get. Districts prefer teachers with little experience because they are paid less than experienced teachers.
LW2 - the avoidance of an appearance of impropriety is as important as committing the offense - this advise was given to me early in my career when my decisions could impact a company's profits. Same thing here. The LW will always wonder if his /her outcome was influenced by the writer's own ambitions.
5
LW3-Contact the Union and the Parents, forget the news and stay anonymous. The only thing unethical here is the children and educators being forced into an unhealthy environment.
35
@DJM
She can't stay anonymous if she notifies the parents.
3
No debate here. Turning in a paper effectively rewritten by a other is just plain wrong.Amazed that it is even a question.
85
@WF
I agree. I’m sure it’s spelled out in the university’s academic integrity code. When a student submits a paper they are presenting it as original work.
30
New thought. We are all forced to deal with unfair, corrupt, venal and obstructive systems during our entire lives. We survive and attempt to thrive as best we can and give morality to those who have earned our respect. Corrupt systems encourage corrupt practices.
1
@JN, that's an attempt at justifying corruption--hardly "new." But no. Your own character is the generator of your trustworthiness, not your opinions of the people around you, nor their "worthiness" of honesty from you. Using your supposed victimhood (just what is that, anyway?) as an excuse to be corrupt is corrupt in itself, and leads to a cynical growth of evil within you and without. Be better. You do have that ability. And that responsibility.
1
Assuming there is actually no mold in the air in LW3's classroom, and it really is just poor ventilation, there might be something LW3 can do for teacher-self:
Breathe more deeply.
Most people don't breathe properly, from deep in the diaphragm. We often don't use our lung capacity properly. In low oxygen environments, this can lead to headaches and other miseries. So breathe like an opera singer. See if it helps.
While I agree with what another poster said about having proper Union representation (or filing an OSHA complaint) here in Virginia, teachers, by law, cannot be Unionized. That has to be true of a number of states.
---
As far as being paid to edit a student paper...
It's cheating unless disclosed by the student. If the student doesn't want to disclose it, then--yup--it's cheating.
Ghostwriting for business or other professional purpose is a totally different animal. Copyrights can be bought and sold just like anything else. In the US, there is no such thing as Moral Rights. US law recognizes Works Made for Hire. A writer can sell a piece along with the right of someone to put their name on it... or the deal might be "no, it has to be 'famous person with *not so famous real writer.*'"
Student writing is intended to show mastery of the topic at hand, including the ability to express that mastery *in writing.* Professional writing for hire is about doing a job.
12
@Dejah 77th
This sounds like pure rationalization. College essays are written to prove a student's mastery of the subject. They are not commodities intended for buying and selling in the open market. That an underground market exists in fact, is only evidence that everything in life can be corrupted. Having someone else write your papers is fraud and theft of a college degree, a habit often leading to considerable hardship later in life. It is unethical, and even criminal in some situations.
1
@Dejah This reminds me of the issue in the art world: Is a Chihuly a Chihuly when it's produced by an apprentice or someone else in the glassblowing shop?
1
@Dejah Wait. Teachers' unions and OSHA complaints in Virginia are ILLEGAL?!! That's insane! Obviously a Republican governor/legislature pushed that through. Why would anyone want to work as a teacher there if that's the case?
4
Years ago while in college, I got paid to help international students with their English papers, essays and such. I was a well educated English speaker who came from a blue collar family, so the extra money to help pay for my expenses was welcome. I used the money wisely, probably read more because of it and probably made me a better communicator. I have done extremely well in my career in engineering, but I'm not sure how well those international students fared later in life.
10
When I was a high school senior(1969), I wrote English papers for a college freshman friend. He paid me $5.00 per paper and it was easy money without and ethical complications for me, at age seventeen.
4
@h king I did it for Berklee College of Music (Boston) students in the mid 1980s for $100 per paper.
1
@h king
And it was still wrong.
Easy money, yes, but at what point do we quit covering up and cleaning up behind people who don’t want to work hard.
Of course as a young person, we are not thinking of those things, just about the easy money.
4
@h king — Frankly, I see no difference between writing a term paper and taking an exam for someone else. Cheating is cheating; both constitute academic dishonesty and ultimately harm the student who is looking for such “help.” Scruples and ethics are not commodities. (Your mileage, of course, may vary.)
As both an editor and a proofreader, I will look at someone’s work for mechanical errors (spelling and grammar) and suggest subtle revisions (word choice, etc.) to existing text, keeping with its intent, without extensively rewriting it and making it mine — regardless of the money I could make.
Most colleges have writing labs for a reason — to assist students with their papers, with the goal of improvement going forward. If these papers are in such sorry shape, that is where LW#1 needs to be pointing his or her clients and not participating in a fraud.
5
Appiah's approach to the freelance editor would have been stronger had he pivoted and addressed the ethical issues behind all kinds of paid ghostwriting and rewriting. It doesn't take a linguistics major to see that there are e.g. quite a few NYT op-eds that were not not actually written by the person with the byline, and there are so many books -- nonfiction and fiction -- where there is a ghostwriter nobody ever hears about. Some are credited, but many are not. No one seems to mind in these latter categories, and Appiah should have drawn the distinction...unless he decided on second thought that it is a distinction without a difference.
17
@O'Brien Very good point. I never thought of ghostwriting in that context until now.
2
Most egregious example: Jimmy Cagney’s obnoxiously titled, “Cagney by Cagney” … written by showbiz biographer John C. McCabe.
As a retired university professor, I would say that correcting students' papers for a fee is plain cheating. Whose paper is graded -- the student's or the correcting editor's?
100
@Tuvw Xyz. I used to do this. I justified my work by trying to teach a couple of basic skills with each paper. I left much of the papers I corrected essentially unchanged. Every encounter was an interesting challenge.
1
LR 3 should file a confidential safety and health report with OSHA.
78
In terms of Letter 1, how would the answer apply to "editing and organizing support" for students who are disabled, .eg., dyslexia, etc. ?
1
@johnw Colleges are required to accommodate students with learning disabilities. Most provide some kind of writing help for students diagnosed with a language related disability. In fact, many colleges set up writing centers where any student, disabled or not, can receive help. This is sanctioned by the school, and it is completely different from the kind of cheating that the first letter describes.
27
@johnw
I don't think the solution for a disabled student would be for someone else to write the paper. Maybe the operation (typing) would be done for the student, but it would have to be the student's own thoughts. The accommodation in some cases may well be just dropping the assignment for that student.
5
appiah (and george and sml) don't get what jessica gets; i worked in a district that dismissed similar health complaints; ONE teacher reported a recurring respiratory issue; facing employer inaction, the union monitored her health regularly, paying for tests the employer, offering nothing more than weak sympathy, dismissed as pointless; BUT an aggressive union found the mysterious mold, found its source, and demonstrated its spread through that building ; she was compelled (with no financial loss) to retire early ; her health stabilized; the building later underwent mold abatement; the district is near a major city, where this event was of negligible news value; the district administration's behavior well represented the political leadership of the district itself, its boros, and the county; what led to a positive settlement, what vindicated the teacher's claims through years of suffering, what made the building safe for other assigned students and staff, was strong union representation - including professional staff and lawyers - at the local, regional, and state levels; absent that single factor, the she would have been alone; the mold in question was not merely an irritant, but a potential killer; the writer of 'i work in a public school...' needs strong union representation; appiah should stick to philosophy, and let the union perform its obligations under state and federal law to fully represent this teacher's interests re wages, hours, and working conditions
116
@david white agree. I didn't understand the dismissed tone of the ethicist.
6
@david white. My first question was “Is she in a non union state”? If not, she needs to get the union involved, just as the teacher in your example did.
3
@david white
David, I, too, workED in public schools in FL in a well-endowed district. I could have died from the black mold and other pathogens and chemicals, ie pesticides, etc. sprayed in a nasty portable. The teachers union here provided me minimal support. In a right-to-work state (FL), unions don't have to be and usually are not strong. [This current governor is a Trump supporter which ramifications are obvious to most readers.] My situation occurred almost 2 decades ago but I do not believe consideration of teachers' health, much less students,' and school plant health and safety has improved much since then, most especially if there are complaints which liability school boards will go to great lengths, at teacher and student expense, to deny. There was no transparency back then nor a way to get it, in terms of plant conditions, and that kind of position is probably still held by most school boards, at least in FL., no matter what they say publicly. This is NOT a "government in the sunshine" state per their PR slogans.
1
Thirty-five years ago, at the start of my career, I got a job as an editor in a company that produced mainframe software and accompanying documentation. One of the technical writers was a woman from Taiwan who was highly knowledgeable in the field but whose English was not at the level of a native speaker. She used to ask me to edit her work, saying that she "just needed [me] to put the 's's" on." [She had trouble conjugating verbs correctly, eg, "I see" vs "he seeS.] Of course, conjugation was just one of her problems. Effectively I completely re-wrote her work, while getting less than half her salary. After two years of this, I applied for what was essentially her job at another company and got the position. Ten years later I was made a VP at that company. So re-writing someone else's work can certainly help your career development, but it's questionable that it helps theirs.
15
In response to Letter 3, I found Mr. Appiah's response quite dismissive. As someone who has personally struggled with 'sick-building syndrome,' due to an undiagnosed mold allergy, it is incredibly difficult to get others to believe you or take your illness seriously. In my case, my partner had no reaction to the mold in our home, while I was bedridden for months with endless migraines that deeply impacted my quality of life. This caused several issues when we then found the cause and needed to break our lease because my partner was completely unaffected. In this writer's case, children are also being exposed to whatever is present in this environment, and the administration should be looking into it, even if there are only a few complaints. That is enough to suggest a pattern. I encourage you to speak to your local health department as they may have safety mechanisms in place to perform their own check and get the issues taken care of if the administration will not.
112
Aren't there government resources the author of Letter 3 can go to? OSHA, for example, or the local health department, or a state environmental agency? It seems that those entities might be a good starting point before going public.
60
Re LW 3's concern about the environmental hazards of her classroom: the students are breathing the same air as the teachers. If the classroom conditions are unhealthy, many of the students should be showing the same kinds of symptoms. I'd suggest discreetly sharing concerns about the classroom environment, including the information on CO2 levels, with some of the parents. Concerned and vocal parents are much harder for the school's administration to ignore, especially when they air their concerns, as they are likely to do, at public school board meetings.
86
@SML:
from LW3:
"My students have also had a variety of illnesses and upper-respiratory issues. "
9
@SML, the whistle-blower needs to be discreet--and wise--because the blowback for publicizing the problem is likely to be serious.
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