I suppose that cheating in schools has become somewhat of an epidemic...according to one of the sources provided for this topic, ninety percent of students in a single school are cheating or have cheated at one point in their high school careers. To be completely honest, I don’t find this statistic hard to believe at all. I truly feel that most students cheat or have cheated at some point or another and feel no remorse about it. Why is this? From the moment we began school we have been told by our parents and teachers alike that cheating is wrong and should never be done under any circumstances. I, myself, have heard numerous times from teachers that it is morally better to not pass in an assignment then to pass in one that is copied off of another or cheated on from somewhere. The unfortunate truth is that most students see nothing wrong with cheating as a whole and take it as “borrowing” or “sharing” ideas amongst each other. How can you enforce a rule against something that students see nothing wrong with?
In Bishop Connolly, I don’t think cheating is any less persistent than in the other school across the country. Honestly, the setting doesn’t matter in the slightest; we, as a private school, have just as any people cheating within our walls than the public schools in the area. Our private status doesn’t make us immune to cheating or the sweeping rise in its popularity. As long as there are schools, there will be students who will try to cheat within them. What these people don’t realize is that if they cheat their way through high school, than they will be completely lost in college. To use an analogy, how can you learn to multiply if you never learned how to add?
How to stop cheating? I honestly have no idea. However, there are some teachers or schools that could be a bit more observant of their student while they take tests. The students are at fault for cheating; however the teachers must also share some of that blame for not catching them in the process. I have seen teachers, do other work, read, or even sleep while their students are in the process of taking a test; is these people would put more effort into watching their class then they would be more likely to stop them from cheating. After all, the best way to stop it is to show students that they can’t get away with it.
Preston I agree with you. We have always been told that cheating is bad and we should never do it, yet kids always seem to do it. To some kids it does not even affect them and this is why I believe that so many people do it. I feel that people do call it “sharing” and “borrowing,” so they feel less guilty and instead are ok with what they are doing. Even Facebook has a group called “Teachers call it cheating, we call it sharing,” and kids do not see how serious that this really is. I also feel that there is just as much cheating here as there would be anywhere else. There always some form of cheating in every school and our school is not exempt. I think that teachers could be more observant and report cheating when ever they see it happening. Students are also to blame because they are doing it and should know better. I think that showing students that cheating will not be taken anymore is a good start. Stricter punishments for cheating students would also be a good start in showing that this will not be tolerated. To answer your question, there is no real way to ever stop cheating but there are ways to prevent it.
Posted by: Katie Gibney | 11/21/2010 at 12:43 AM