<p>Monoclide- If you're so fine with your 80, just take it and don't cheat. Obviously, you aren't terribly satisfied with that grade or you wouldn't be cheating. Earn the grade.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Monoclide- If you're so fine with your 80, just take it and don't cheat. Obviously, you aren't terribly satisfied with that grade or you wouldn't be cheating. Earn the grade.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's either the 80, with cheating, or a 30, hard labored grade. I may not care about the grade in the end, but there is no way that I can let a 30 slip on my transcript.</p>
<p>As far as homework sharing goes, is that really cheating? Especially when the teachers expect collaboration. I've found that the people who don't like sharing homework tend to be competitive types who care a lot about grades. </p>
<p>I don't really feel this wave of outrage when someone cheats, honestly. It's not like we're ranked or have quotas for As or something. Everyone who deserves an A will get it. Plus the people who need to cheat usually aren't that smart to begin with. Most of the smartest kids I know feel like cheating would be admitting they weren't smart enough to get good grades based on intelligence (no one likes to admit to working hard :p ).</p>
<p>i agree with monoclide on this, its all about the end result. Will i cheat to suceed, hell yes i will, even if i feel bad about it later. Do i cheat on tests and homework and all that jazz, yep i do. Is it becuase i cant do the work or arent smart enough? No, it not. I think some of the smartest people i know cheat, because they are bored with what they have, or just want the fun of beating the system. In the end, i think it comes down to what you want to obtain and how you are going to obtain it. Whether you waste your time learning stuff you probably wont ever use again, or cheating because you can, its all about the results</p>
<p>I don't cheat cause I'm paranoid that teachers will find out somehow.. and I won't be able to go to Harvard</p>
<p>"IMO, cheating can hardly be called "casual."</p>
<p>Don't you feel any guilt when you get that A and realize you don't deserve it, Monoclide?"</p>
<p>a cheated grade feels a lot better than one that was studied for</p>
<p>"I only cheat on the classes I don't care about."
"I only cheat when the teacher doesn't seem to care."
"I only cheat on homework, never on tests."
"I only cheat because I can't have a bad grade on my transcript in a class I couldn't pass honestly."
"I only cheat because I'm bored and cheating is more fun than learning."
"I only cheat because of the pressure from my parents."
"Kids only cheat because their performance is measured quantitatively and because they're rewarded for good grades instead of the intrinsic value of learning."</p>
<p>The capacity of children (and some parents) to rationalize is staggering.</p>
<p>WOW... I CANNOT BELIEVE MY EYES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Am I really seeing this????????????</p>
<p>*"Screw U.S. History. Who cares if I neglect, cheat, BS that class. If I'm gonna be a doctor one day.... I gotta focus on AP Bio" *</p>
<p>If moral values aren't shaped in high school, it may be too late. I'm sure your boss will appreciate it when you "skipped the bullshiat" before you got to the "important shtuff".</p>
<p>geek_mom,
Please become a teacher one day.
These mindless kids, that blame the educational system like there's no tomorrow... desperately need a reality check.</p>
<p>I've only ever cheated on hw assignments by copying answers when I forgot to do something, never on tests or essays. I just think everyone here needs to stop pretending that your so morally superior to everyone else, just because you say something noble on an anonymous forum- if you were in a situation where you could cheat and get away with it, I bet more than half of you would do it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The capacity of children (and some parents) to rationalize is staggering.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But, when your Italian 3 teacher gives you a six page test and fifty words to memorize? Yeah.. You're not going to do that. Especially when you only make it to 1/2 of the classes.</p>
<p>Some teachers just think they're classes are your only one and that you have endless hours to dedicate to studying verbs that you will never come across, despite the whole fact that, if or maybe when, you go to Italy - You can survive on English.</p>
<p>Take it another way - You want some new that new Gucci bag. Are you going to go to H&M for it? Yeah, no. If you want to be a doctor, the last class you need is Ancient African Mythology.</p>
<p>I am in my late 50's, and can honestly say that I have never, ever cheated on anything. I do not take credit for this, because I really didn't know anyone who cheated, back in the 60's. In my school cheating would have been a shocking transgression, and the morality of my childhood years put a heavy premium on honesty.</p>
<p>I really want to reiterate that the values evident in so many of these posts by young people, DO constitute an ethical system. These students are NOT immoral, or amoral, but are expressing a new morality that makes perfect sense to them. They do not feel badly after cheating, because they have not gone against their own value system.</p>
<p>In the end, it is violating one's own standards of conduct that causes guilt. If your standards of conduct condone cheating, then there is no guilt.</p>
<p>In order to understand and address this moral problem, I think adults need to get beneath the surface, and really put themselves in the kids' shoes. If we do that, we will have to look at ourselves too, and the messages our kids have grown up with.</p>
<p>If your kid comes home with a D on a test (and you know they studied hard), what do you do? Maybe if we give our kids our own honorary A's for effort, and then ask them to constructively meet with the teacher to address the problem in learning material, they will have a good model for the future. Instead, many parents get mad, or offer a bribe for improvement.</p>
<p>In school open houses, how many teachers talk about what kids are going to learn in the semester, and seem excited? No, instead, they talk about grading and MCAS tests. At least in our school.</p>
<p>My kids boycotted the endless reading competitions in the school and library, despite the fact that they read all the time. They never got that pizza for reading the most books in the summertime. They also refused to keep one of those reading logs, in which they were supposed to log in the times and number of pages read- a tactic also used for smoking cessation! Their grades suffered, at first, but then the teacher came around.</p>
<p>Even with all this conscious parenting effort, one of my 3 kids cheats, and sounds like the kids on this forum. She has a carefully thought out ethical system, in which she does not cheat on tests (well, she did cheat on one, in middle school), or anything that counts, or anything that is meaningful but, to allow her time to follow a passionate extracurricular activity, has been known to copy "stupid" busy work homework. (By the way, I agree with the poster who was advocating collaboration, despite its blurry edge w/cheating).</p>
<p>I talk with my cheating child a lot about this. It is hard for me to understand her, and hard for her to understand me, but I do know that education is failing her, every day. I hold her responsible for what she is doing, but I don't punish her. I am trying to give her some of the learning she craves at home, and build her confidence. I support her astute observations of corruption and apathy around her. The path to honesty in learning has to be a positive one, and, since she is still young, I am hoping it takes.</p>
<p>Her sister took tests at home a lot, due to health problems. She never, ever cheated, even though her books were just a few feet away. </p>
<p>Do I think that one of my kids is morally superior to the other one? Absolutely not. </p>
<p>I believe in the inherent moral sense of teenagers. There is something terribly wrong, but I do not blame the posters here who are so hung up on getting good results, regardless of the integrity of the process.</p>
<p>
[quote]
there is no way that I can let a 30 slip on my transcript.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Why not, if that's where your ability lies?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Some teachers just think they're classes are your only one and that you have endless hours to dedicate to studying verbs that you will never come across, despite the whole fact that, if or maybe when, you go to Italy - You can survive on English.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Anyone with a hard courseload gets this mindset from teachers all the time, myself included. Some of us do the work ourselves anyway. I can see some reason in copying hw - a lot of hw is busywork. But cheating on tests, quizzes just shows you're lazy and basically you're admitting you're 1) not smart enough to do well honestly or 2) too lazy to do well honestly. Or both.</p>
<p>My school paper did a survey on cheating and the number was 97%. LOL.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Is it becuase i cant do the work or arent smart enough? No, it not.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I guess I can see why you need to cheat.</p>
<p>ha ash you got me, i do need cheat. im sorry i couldnt complete a true sentence for ya. i think that compmom brings up a good point though. The parents and teachers only see it from their point of view, not really digging beneath the surface. I cheat because i want to have time to spend doing other things then studying for a useless US History test. I want to be able to go out and enjoy my life, not sitting in my room pouring over the latest AP Calc. homework. And the thing is i dont feel guilty about any of it, because i dont feel like i have done anything wrong. Maybe when the teachers stop flinging out homework or tests just because they need too, and start to really focusing on TEACHING, then you will see a decrease. But as for right now, the benefits really outweigh the risks in the whole cheating game.</p>
<p>Just want to clarify that I am in fact very upset about the cheating I hear about. I do not think it is okay. But the answer does not lie in superficial judgements of the cheaters. It is just very complicated.</p>
<p>I was thinking about how, in the late 1950's, we kids would watch Romper room and were told to drink milk when they showed a portrait of Eisenhower, accompanied by Hail to the Chief. I think we even saluted him, at home, when the tv told us to! That was not an era when most of us would consider cheating. There was respect for authority and elders, however misguided.</p>
<p>Since then, we have had assassinations (MLK, JFK, RFK), Vietnam (riots and police brutality); a long string of presidential lying (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky, and Iraq); white collar crime; torture of prisoners by the US, cheating scandals w/public employees; a tv/media culture that is not exactly Beaver Cleaver land; etc. etc. Idealism is long gone. Education is about jobs and money, not the ivory tower (pros and cons to this). Most religion does not assure us of our reward in heaven anymore. All this stuff affects our kids, even if they were born in the 1980's or 1990's.</p>
<p>I think the answer is sort of existential: people should do the right thing so that their lives remain centered, and so that the life of the community is also centered, sort of cosmically speaking. But try convincing a teenager of that, if the environments they are in, especially the schools, are so off center to begin with!</p>
<p>I won't write any more long posts. Sorry mine are so long. I have been thinking about this for a long time, and it was interesting to read all the posts when the topic came up on CC.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Especially when you only make it to 1/2 of the classes.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, there's your problem... No wonder you're failing.</p>
<p>compmom, I've agreed with everything you've said so far, but I don't think society is entirely to blame. I'm a teenager, and I don't cheat. But I'm in the same schools and environments as other people my age who do, and I have friends who would and could never cheat, and friends who would, could, and do.</p>
<p>So what happened? Where did some kids just stop caring about a particular subject, or just school in general? I can relate to how they--we--feel, in that there are subjects I don't particularly like either, which I know will have nothing to do with my future aspirations in life (ex. I'm really not a fan of History; I'm thinking about a Human Bio major/medical career path). And I do pretty poorly in Calc sometimes (last test: 66), but it never occurs to me to cheat my way to an A. </p>
<p>Maybe I'm biased because I usually get As anyway (knock on wood), but I really do wonder about this. I hear my classmates saying stuff like "Whatever, I just don't care" regarding tests and grades practically every week. Why not? Even if you're not going to be a European History major or a Calculus major, why is there such an apathy? The way I see it, school is still school, and you should always try your hardest to do well. But that shouldn't mean cheating, plaigiarism, lying, or dishonesty - to yourself, to your teachers, or to your parents.</p>
<p>I find it a little disappointing that people don't feel bothered when they cheat. Yeah, maybe they don't see anything wrong with it, but still. It's just like.. I don't know. I kind of want to say that some people just lack morals, but I know that's not true. Is it? But at the same time, like you said:</p>
<p>
[quote]
I really want to reiterate that the values evident in so many of these posts by young people, DO constitute an ethical system. These students are NOT immoral, or amoral, but are expressing a new morality that makes perfect sense to them. They do not feel badly after cheating, because they have not gone against their own value system.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That makes sense to me; it really does. But I can't help it, I don't feel comfortable with all of this. I hope most people can agree with the fact that cheating is wrong. So if teens aren't feeling guilty because cheating's not going against their own morals.. well, cheating is still wrong, isn't it? So.. it's not okay that they feel this way. But compmom brought up another good point: that it's violating your own standards of conduct that causes guilt, and if your standards of conduct say that cheating is okay, then there is no guilt.</p>
<p>Well, I don't know. Sorry for this long post; most of it was just me thinking out loud.</p>
<p>This is a good discussion though. It's making me really think.. always a good thing.</p>
<p>Our school distributed an anonymous survey a month or two ago, mostly about drugs and alcohol. It was done at 8 in the morning during homeroom when everyone was still asleep after not listening to the announcements.
No one I knew took the survey seriously. It's a lot more fun to make up a personality for yourself by saying you're a 26-year-old freshman who has stolen from everyone, never feels safe in school, and has done crystal meth 80 times in the past month than just to do some boring, repetitive survey when you're still asleep.
If the conditions for these surveys were anything like for the surveys I did, I wouldn't trust the results one bit.</p>