Reflection on "Helping" by Jim Cooper

In his book Down on the island, Jim Cooper points to different issues regarding the education in Puerto Rico, specifically English education. In one of his essays titled "Helping", Cooper addresses a matter that has been, and still is, present in todays learning process of the students, he addresses cheating, or what he calls helping.

Here in Puerto Rico I dare say that people are very hospitable and group oriented. I'm speaking here in general when I say that it is very normal to see a Puerto Rican helping someone else because they need it. Jim Cooper himself says "Puerto Ricans are the most hospitable people in the world." Though, many tourists that come to our island say the opposite, and I think that's because they experience only a very minimal part of what Puerto Rico is, but I'm moving away from the topic which is cheating. Now, because we are so group oriented, when it comes to classes and exams and we see that someone else needs help, we give it to them even though we've been taught not to.

In his essay, Cooper narrates how when he was a teacher at the Colegio he had a huge problem with cheating. Not only did students cheat, but when he tried to confront them and tell hem it was wrong they would say they were just helping, and shouldn't they help their classmates when they need it? Cooper says: "The basic disagreement or perhaps misunderstanding was about what was considered cheating and what was just "helping"." When he tried to explain to the students that it was wrong to "help" students in their tests they couldn't comprehend why it was so bad. I believe it was all a matter of perspective. From the point of view of the professor, the students were doing something wrong by helping others pass the class, because truly they weren't learning anything of the subject, but, if we see it from the point of view of the students, they were just helping. Since our childhood, we are taught to be cooperative, and that can also be compared to an American student. We are taught to be cooperative, they are taught to be competitive. In his book, Cooper states

"A Puerto Rican student will let his neighbor look at his test paper because he wants to help him get a good grade. An American student will hide his paper from his neighbor because he is only interested in getting a good grade himself and certainly is not out to help what he thinks of as a competitor, a rival."

I'm not going to say that I agree with cheating looking at it from a perspective that I want to become a professor, because I do believe that students should do their own work. That is the only way to actually now if they are learning something, though I will say I don't agree with exams. Exams now a days are just a memory test, to see who remembers the most out of all of the things that were taught in that class. I myself have been one of those students that if an exam is coming and I don't know the material very well I just memorize every little detail, and after the exam I forget absolutely everything I knew. It's not a good thing to say, but it is true, and I think many of us have done it too once in a while. Now, because there is no other form of knowing if a student may know something or not, exams will continue to be a tedious part of our academic learning process.

In conclusion, Cooper's concern towards students cheating in Puerto Rico is completely understandable and it is still a matter that hasn't been completely addressed today. Puerto Ricans just want to help their classmates, and Americans just want to be better than their class mates. It is a matter of how they were raised, and they way that specific person is. Puerto Ricans will continue to be as helping as possible just because it is a tendency in all of us, we've grown up with that idea and it'll be very hard to try and change who we are.