Hell Week

Parents Forum
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<p>My senior came to the breakfast table this morning announcing the beginning of Hell Week. Of her class of 100, easily 80 percent have applied early decision, and the lion's share will hear this week. She says the tension is so thick you could -- well you know.</p>

<p>Then I opened the newspaper to see the following article on the front page.
Unfortunately, another sign of the times.</p>

<p>"Amid privilege, crushing pressure to excel
Facing parent and peer expectations, high-achieving students may cheat.
By Kellie Patrick and Lini S. Kadaba
Inquirer Staff Writers</p>

<p>"...At Cherry Hill High School East - where news got out last week that five students may have paid a hacker to doctor their computerized grade transcripts - classmates say the burden to excel at a fast-track school may have led to the cheating scandal.</p>

<p>According to a new study, that's a reasonable theory.</p>

<p>More than 40 percent of teens feel intense pressure to succeed academically at any cost, according to a national teen ethics poll released last week by Junior Achievement and Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, a financial advisory firm. And 22 percent of the 787 students surveyed said they had cheated on a test in the last year.</p>

<p>Anxious students usually take their cues from their parents, says clinical psychologist Madeline Levine, author of The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids.</p>

<p>Well-meaning parents "are afraid their kids aren't going to be successful," said Levine, whose book is one of several about teenagers and intense stress out this year.</p>

<p>Some pass their fear on through warnings that anything but perfection dooms their children to a life of diminished possibilities, Levine said. Children, in turn, may think their parents will love them only if they do well...."</p>

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<p>Hmm, I took notice here as I attended Cherry Hill High School East myself! And back in my day, it wasn't really competitive and I don't recall the pressure to go to elite colleges or anything like that. I recall one of my brothers and myself going to more selective schools than the majority of our peers and we were not vals or anything. I don't recall my HS as a "fast tracked school". Times they are a changin'....</p>

3

<p>80% applied ED! Wow. Must be a wealthy neighborhood. The poor dears.</p>

4

<p>
[quote]
classmates say the burden to excel at a fast-track school may have led to the cheating scandal.</p>

<p>According to a new study, that's a reasonable theory.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, it's not. A lack of integrity led to the cheating scandal. Saying "the pressure made them do it" is ducking responsibility. And a slap in the face of all the students who, under the same pressure, did not doctor their grades, plagiarize, or otherwise cheat.</p>

5

<p>I thought S. would be a nervous wreck by now. His ED school has been his favorite from the very beginning -- after lots of research and many college visits, it's still far-and-away his first choice. After struggling and stalling and finally getting his ED application done, however, he's taken a second look at those schools that were his (very) distant 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices. The good news is that he now sees the strong points in each of them too, and has even added a couple schools to his backup plan. Of course hopes are still high for ED, but I think he'll deal with it OK either way.</p>

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<p>"
No, it's not. A lack of integrity led to the cheating scandal. Saying "the pressure made them do it" is ducking responsibility. And a slap in the face of all the students who, under the same pressure, did not doctor their grades, plagiarize, or otherwise cheat."</p>

<p>I agree with Garland. People of weak character can always find reasons to lack integrity.</p>

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<p>^^Agreed! Baloney to that "reasonable theory." How about hard work and skipping the short cuts?</p>

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<p>I disagree garland. The burden to excel did lead them to cheat. The lack of moral integrity allowed them to do it. Kinda like "my hatred of XYX conjured up thoughts of hiring a hit man. My morality prohibited me from actually doing it."</p>

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<p>Sorry, I don't buy it. That presupposes that the rest of the students, and people in general, first consider and then reject cheating as an alternative to hard work. I don't, I don't think my kids do, and I don't think a lot of other people do, either. </p>

<p>Assuming that the natural reaction to a challenge is to consider cheating is just too depressing for me to accept as a default position.</p>

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<p>Don't be so sure your kids don't cheat. I recently attended a seminar on financial fraud. A study was done recently-completely anonymous and confidential. The results showed that 80% of the TOP tier students at a range of public and private high schools have cheated. Of course, the entire 20% that doesn't cheat are the offspring of the posters on this forum.</p>

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<p>Well, I'm going to naively proclaim that I am sure. If that makes me fodder for another "what everyone believes on CC (snicker, snicker--we know better)thread", so be it.</p>

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<p>If my kids cheat, they sure do a poor job of it because their grades don't match up to their high test scores. LOL.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
results showed that 80% of the TOP tier students at a range of public and private high schools have cheated.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I cheated twice -- once in fourth grade and once in tenth. In tenth grade, the teacher was reading a novel during a German test and the whole class (at least that's how I remember it) was working together on the exam. It was surreal, and didn't help me anyway.</p>

<p>I bet none of the other parents here cheated, though.</p>

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<p>Human nature doesn't change that much, in my opinion. There are people who would never cheat. There are people who would rather cheat than succeed honestly, just for the thrill of it. And there's a lot of people in between who will cheat when they feel they are under more pressure than they feel they can handle and that cheating as a viable means of dealing with their situation. I don't think adopting a sanctimonious pose adds much to the discussion. I don't remember ever cheating in school - but I also don't remember ever feeling any pressure to excel, either. If I had, who knows what I would have done? </p>

<p>I know my kids have cheated. One of my boys was too lazy to read a book for a book report so he made up a book and wrote a "report" about it. Got an "A". That was largely a "type 1" cheat - he certainly could have read a book instead, but I think he like the scamming aspect of what he did instead. </p>

<p>I do think it's sad that the emphasis is so strongly on the "reward" - ie. grades - and so little on the actual goal - learning - that a large number of students would feel inclined to cheat.</p>

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<p>Well, garland, someone has to be in that 20%. Might as well be your kids!</p>

<p>Washdad-I cheated a few times in high school. I gave out some answers once, and another time I had a make-up test to take and saw the original test. I'm sure there were other times. It was pretty common in the upper tier of my high school, even "back then". None of us cheated in law school- it was all essay tests.</p>

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<p>I may be completely out of it here but I don't think the article is talking about cheating on a single test or assignment. They are talking about permanently altering a high school transcript. Not to put too fine a point on integrity but this is beyond just cheating on a single assignment. After all haven't all of us driven over the speed limit once or twice :) ? But we are talking about a very serious offense in this article.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
One of my boys was too lazy to read a book for a book report so he made up a book and wrote a "report" about it. Got an "A".

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If it was a creative writing course he earned that "A."</p>

<p>I thought you were going to say that he wrote a book report on a book he hadn't read and got an "A" for it. I don't know if I would even call that cheating. Junior read and skimmed "Moby Dick" and successfully did the related work. (I read endlessly and I've never been able to get through MD, so I find it hard to be too judgmental.) Did junior cheat by not actually reading every fun-filled page of whaling details?</p>

<p>I am not a cheating relativist, by the way. If you think you're cheating -- it's cheating. When I collaborated with fellow German students during an exam, that was cheating (and I'm not particularly proud of the incident). Writing a successful paper without reading all of the assigned material, which is something I did several times in college, doesn't strike me as cheating. I think I'll start a thread on this in the Cafe. It's a potentially intriguing topic.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Not to put too fine a point on integrity but this is beyond just cheating on a single assignment.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Great point. This might even be a criminal act, as it was tampering with someone's computer system.</p>

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<p>OK, I agree that tampering with official grades is definitely criminal & pretty scary stuff.
"Creative writing" where the writer makes up the incidents that supposedly inspired the writing is definitely something we watched S do (he doesn't have emotional attachments to a lot of the things he is able to write lovely pieces about, so he made them up to go with the assignment). I guess I thought it was an extension of creative writing & didn't really see it as cheating. OK, sorry about the detour on the thread.
I agree that hacking grades & changing them is wrong, wrong, wrong. Am sad that folks felt it was justified. Wonder if they'll be hacking into the ETS website & change their test scores as well?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Writing a successful paper without reading all of the assigned material, which is something I did several times in college, doesn't strike me as cheating.

[/quote]
Doesn't strike me that way either. Every time you guess on an exam question that you aren't prepared for, would that be cheating? I don't think so. But copying a paper or someone else's exam answers definitely is.</p>