The dam (of cheating) really broke loose during covid. The true test of character is whether you’ll cheat when there is no one looking at you.
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I always felt that cheating, like lying, is more trouble than it’s worth. It’s nice to be able to sleep at night without a guilty conscience. But maybe I’m just plain lazy. The machinations of cheating just seem like too much work. And I would never put my name to anyone else’s work. The simple things in life…
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The trouble is that not everyone feels that way apparently. If we can help make the cost to cheat more obvious, there’d be less cheating.
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I’d actually go even further and say that many of my children’s friends seem genuinely kinder, more thoughtful, and more empathetic than the teens of my generation. I mean sure some of their friends can be clueless and a little myopic at times as well as quite sarcastic or snarky. I think the heightened sarcasm comes from having 24-7 access to media and also from meme culture, but even if I see plenty of sarcasm in my teens’ interaction with their friends, I haven’t witnessed much deliberate meanness in their generation. When I was growing up, I saw much more cruelty and queen bee behavior among kids than I do now.
No idea if cheating is worse, better or the same now. It is not something that my kids have talked about one way or the other.
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I think part of what we are witnessing as far as “standards” is a parallel decline in tolerance for mistakes. The concept that making mistakes is part of the learning process is lost when everything seems to be high stakes, or at least, high visibility.
Every error is subject to scrutiny and pillory. Every college or trade school admission seems to hinge on grades , which hinge on exams, etc…which is understandable given the money involved for parents and students. So rather than relax our capacity to understand mistakes as part of the process, we just lower the bar so these mistakes have less of an impact.
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Are you saying that cheating is happening because stakes are so high?
Otherwise mistakes are not the same thing as intentional cheating
I think intolerance for actual mistakes is related to intentional cheating, yes. I agree that they aren’t the same thing — but if you’ve spent 12 years in an educational system that leaves little room for mistakes, when Mom and Dad are paying $$$ and everyone is watching, it’s hardly a surprise that some students will resort to cheating. Especially given the twin atttiudes of the left/right (not to veer into political, but we have the left attacking every misstep, and the right glorifying “alternate facts”)
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I think you’re right about there being a culture of not accepting mistakes, and I agree that does lead to cheating for some. Fear of loss is a powerful thing. How many threads have been written here bemoaning the idea of a student getting a B junior or senior year? How many people clearly value a ‘top tier’ school above all else? If you think you need to be perfect to get ahead - cheating can be a rational decision. A bad decision but rational.
I am a scrupulously honest person. If you ask my children what I dislike more than anything else - they would immediately say, “Lying.” I think it diminishes people when they lie, and I’ve always explained to my children that I will always be angrier with a lie than I will with the truth - no matter how ‘bad’ they worry that truth is.
At the same time, I have always made it clear to my children that their worth isn’t tied to achievement. Or prizes. Definitely not grades. They are worthy of love and support because they are uniquely themselves and they know I think they are wonderful regardless of the grades they get.
I made it a point to be explicit with my children that mistakes are part of growing and learning. That a bad test score or grade won’t derail their future. That setbacks are part of growth and an opportunity to get better at asking for help, advocating for themselves and learning yet again that there is nothing they could do that would ever make us love them less.
That there will be plenty of schools that will be happy to accept them for college, no matter what happens with a class, or a subject or a standardized test was also part of that message, especially during junior and senior year of high school.
I think it is important to be explicit with messages like that, because they are children and children can’t always put things into proper perspective. I also think if you value honesty, you have to be clear that you value it over and above other ‘achievements’.
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At least in 2021 they didn’t expel all the cadets who cheated on a math exam, at the time, if I understand it correctly, they had instituted some sort of leniency if you confessed, but it looks like they’ve gone back to the former rules. West Point cadets expelled over worst cheating scandal in 40 years - CBS News
I remember my younger son complaining to me that all the biggest cheaters in the high school got away with it over and over. He thought it might come back to bite them when it came time for applying to colleges, but they all got into good colleges. Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that we have a culture where being a tattletale is worse than breaking the rules.
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Yes, same here. But the ones that cheated did not have ambition or grit. Life’s a marathon not a sprint.
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I am saddened by cheating in many forms, and agree you’re cheating yourself the opportunity to learn. I also agree w @greenbutton, that the pressure is greater.
I was shocked at the amount of work now required of students, both on the HS and College level. Each year, the teachers/professors seem to pile on additional work. Add all the extra-curricular activities now expected of at least HS students. Take extra classes to compete (SAT prep, etc.). Each year the bar is raised, maybe only slightly, but raised. Like taxes, it never (rarely) is readjusted. It just keeps growing.
I briefly taught as adjunct in a college level program. What they demanded of students was far greater than what I experienced in the same program (many years ago). Information may be easier to access – but the amount of information both needed and available has grown exponentially. Required reading was greater. Quality of output needed to meet a higher expectation. Were they learning more? Maybe. But just to survive the added pressure, many resorted to cutting corners somewhere: Sleep, Quality, Depth of Learning, and sadly cheating.
Instilling values when young is imperative. The pressure also needs to be reduced to a more sustainable level.
The pressure will not go down because it is self-generated pressure. Arguably there won’t be pressure if you don’t aim for things for which you won’t have the capacity. As an example, I am not going to aim to make the final 8 in the Olympic 100m. Neither will my kid. There is absolutely no pressure there. Just because some college is taking in applications, if I apply to that college, hold out hope, and feel pressure from it, the situation cannot be helped. I was telling friends yesterday that there is absolutely no stress regarding some applications that went out this year :-). Indeed there is no stress if a) you are sure of getting in, or b) you are sure of not getting in, but just want to throw away $100 in application fee into the Niagara Falls. Wise kids don’t even apply to some schools even if they are offered admission – e.g. Caltech, MIT or CMU SCS. This is the way you maintain sanity. Not necessarily because those places are hard to get in (that is a separate matter), but because they may be unpleasant places to navigate with inherent stress built into the place by the nature of kids that self-select to go there.
This post seems to imply that it’s only the kids who don’t genetically belong at the school in question would be cheating their way in. At least that’s what your 100 m race analogy and some of your other word choices seem to say. I doubt that is what you mean, though, right? I am certain that even when the “right” people are at the school, whatever you mean by that (perhaps genetically gifted in intelligence akin to how Usain Boot is genetically gifted at running), there is still a significant subset who cheat.
I am saying that some places are harder to get into than others. And I tell my kids “that is a stressful place. why bother?”. Depending on the personality of the kid. Some kids can take more stress than others – sometimes it is not even about intelligence. I have dissuaded them from paths that would tested their sanity. Kids and parents need to ask whether everything is for them, or perhaps something are best left alone. Life is a marathon.
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But what does that have to do with declining moral standards?
Because it is suggested above that people are cheating because of the increased pressure. I am saying pressure is endogenous, and we need to manage it down by choosing one’s circumstances. You can’t point to pressure and say that you’ll cheat.
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I think another variable is (hate to use a catchphrase) resiliance. Too many students have been sheltered from failure, mistakes, hardship in whatever pursuits they are involved with. Obviously not the case for families where life is genuinely difficult for whatever reason, but when parents snowplow or intervene (with good intentions), they take away a chance for that student to come out the other side.
And then when life is hard or disappointing, instead of cheating or hiding or lying, we can go "well, I have survived worse things/sadder things than doing poorly on " whatever. If they don’t have the chance to do that, they are less well equipped to cope later. Look at all the admissions posts about “how do we game this system to get in” and “my kid didn’t get in one of their choices and we are devastated”.
No parent likes lying. But every student hates to dissapoint. Only in failure can parents prove they meant what they said “You are worthy, no matter what”.
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Not necessarily. If high school students are told that a high school graduate job and career is unlikely to be successful, then they will aspire for college. If they are told that an ordinary college degree job is not that likely to be successful, then they will aspire for elite college or a major associated with stronger career prospects (that is more competitive because so many others are trying for it). If they are told that most colleges are too expensive, then they will have to try for the colleges with the best financial aid and/or aim for the more competitive scholarships.
It is not like past generations where many* high school students were looking at the following possibilities:
- A high school graduate job that can lead to a successful career.
- Attending a low cost college leading to a BA/BS that (from any college in any major) is a distinction in the job market. Even without parent money, many still found it possible to self-support on a high school graduate job while paying the low tuition and book expenses then with a small student loan.
*Of course, some back then were still excluded due to gender / race / etc. discrimination or stereotyping.
These days, the pressure is higher because the labor market situation is not like the above.
Yes. You are indirectly competing with the rest of the world.