<p>The valedictorian might seem to have had her cheating rewarded, but in the long run she will end up paying a heavy price. It will be a Pyrrhic victory, in terms of her personal integrity. I can't imagine how much pressure she must feel to win at any cost. It's sad. I would much rather my children be respected and respectable than be at the top of their class. I expect they feel the same way and act accordingly. I will, however, ask my daughter about cheating. In four years of high school she hasn't mentioned a single instance of cheating though I am sure it happens. </p>
<p>My husband is a CPA. Trust me, there are heavy professional and financial penalties if caught cheating in his field. The IRS, for one, doesn't put up with it.</p>
<p>A lot of high school students even on CC seem to have the attitude that cheating is OK and that 'everyone does it'. I agree that this school is not doing the student any favors. Colleges are very hard on cheating and plagiarism. At my daughter's college they remind them constantly about academic integrity. The first time anyone is caught cheating they get an automatic F in the course with a notation by the F that it is because of cheating. (I believe it is called an F shreak).</p>
<p>My daughter has a friend that is a grad student and he was telling her he had to do a group project and one member of the group plagiarized his entire portion of the paper. Can you imagine being a grad student and doing that? Amazing. And yes he was caught.</p>
<p>je_ne - I love that term, but the usage just sounded awkward. Besides, it usually refers to a victory which isn't sustainable in a campaign due to you having a smaller force. Theoretically, if she has no personal integrity already then she doesn't lose a thing in future repetitions :P</p>
<p>Of course cheating pays. That's why it is so rampant. Stealing pays too. Lying too. The consequences of getting caught can far outweigh the benefits, however. Also there is this thing caled reputation.</p>
<p>D complained of cheating on tests in her AP chem. class. S confirmed that it happened a lot when he had this teacher too. At least in a course like that, you can hope that the people involved will eventually experience some consequences, namely ending up with a lower AP exam score. But, for many kids who just want the grade and don't care about learning the material or taking chemistry over again in college, that's not too terrible of a price. </p>
<p>Btw, the teacher is aware of the cheating. He told me so. But he choses to do nothing. Only commented that he doesn't really care because they're not particularly good at the cheating so its not helping them very much.</p>
<p>We were having this discussion last night over dinner. One of my sophomore sons was telling me that so many kids in his Spanish Honors class cheat off him during tests. I asked if he tried to stop it and he said that when he was aware of it, he did. He said, "Why don't they just study? They'd do fine!" He said he's heard that lots of cheating goes on in the Honors classes because they are so competitive. Both my high school age sons believe that it will catch up with kids on standardized tests-SAT's, AP's. I didn't know whether to tell them that I believed that it would catch up to them or not. I wish it would, but I just don't know.</p>
<p>CollectivSynergy: I simply meant the victory would come at a painfully heavy cost, in this case to her self-concept when she eventually realizes how she compromised her personal integrity. I am hopeful that her decision to cheat was a bad decision born out of a temporary feeling of desperation not representative of any fixed, evil trait. Sorry if my use of the expression was awkward.</p>
<p>A girl from my school cheated all the time. She got into Brown. Probably perfect for her since it's open curriculum and she can take classes P/NP. So yes, cheating pays. High risk, high reward. Volatile but apparently worked for a lot of folks.</p>
<p>"Whether or not you believe in Karma, cheating is primarily a self deception."</p>
<p>As already noted (in the case of Oscar Schindler, for example), cheating can be a self-aware, self-conscious, ennobling act that is celebrated (rightfully), and held up as an example to be emulated.</p>
<p>I cheat quite a bit at school; I sell work, I copy work, I don't do work and manage to still get credit for it, etc. and in the end, I usually score at the top of my class on exams. </p>
<p>I am blessed in that if I write something, read it, hear it, or whatever, I'll usually remember it. So while I am copying a friend's worksheet, whether I am paying attention to what I am reading or not, I will still remember it so that I can do well on the upcoming test without waisting my time on some busy work. I've never been caught, and I hate taking risks. So I am always aware of the risk of getting caught while I cheat, and am very cautious when I do it. Do I find it immoral? No. Do I think it matters if it's immoral or not? No. Do I care if other people think it's immoral? No. Do I like when people sit there and state, as a fact, that cheating is immoral and all cheaters will end up failing in college? Yes; it gives me a good laugh. </p>
<p>I haven't read a page out of my history text book this year. I copy other peoples' book work, I sell it, and I'm absolutely confident that I will get a 4 or 5 on the AP test coming up. Obviously, not all cheaters are like this. If one can't cheat AND make the grade on tests, then they obviously shouldn't be cheating, or they should at least be studying. </p>
<p>I've never stolen a dollar from anybody. I am a very generous person. And I cheat; I don't see it up there in one's set of personality traits: kindness, humor, intelligence, etc.</p>
<p>Sauvemente, I hope you're just showing your lack of maturity. I would certainly assume that your parents would be shocked at your lack of ethics. Not only that, you pride yourself on taking advanced classes, yet cheating is a sign of intellectual insecurity not the reverse as you appear to be trying to argue.</p>
<p>"academic integrity" is such a manmade concept. it's not instinctive and neither is conscience (<em>cough</em> creationists) it's been brainwashed into us by outside forces, almost like communism. nobody is born with it, and the people who so adamantly say "i would NEVER put a mark on my integrity like that!" are just succumbing to years of propaganda. </p>
<p>not saying there's anything wrong with that of course</p>
<p>I would disagree.
I was aware of fair/not fair, when I was in kindergarten.
I think circumstances can make us opportunists, but I think that there also is a basic human awareness on how to treat other people & what is * right*.</p>
<p>( However that doesn't include being born knowing how to write in-text citations without plagiarizing)</p>
<p>I asked my D about cheating. She said that she doesn't cheat--she wouldn't trust anyone else's answers more than her own. But she does make a concerted effort to cover her paper up when she takes a test...to save all those others who would try to peek at her paper from cheating.</p>