There are many reasons why kids might cheat; the three most common causes are pressure from parents, deadlines, and the ease of getting away with it. As mentioned in the above paragraphs, cheating is remarkably easy to get away with thanks to the Internet. These days, the most common reason to cheat is pressure from parents. Because we live in a product-oriented society, our parents tend to focus on our class rank and soothe better grade make them look like better parents. As one student quoted in the article, “Some parents are under the impression that if you don’t do well and your grades aren’t top, you’ll be lying in a gutter somewhere for the rest of your life.” So kids who find themselves unable to cope with that kind of pressure/stress turn to cheating in order to make themselves look more intelligent. The students who cheat because of deadlines often procrastinate and then find themselves in a race against time to finish their papers. They often find more work than they have time for, so they turn to cheating. There are some students who cheat because they see it as a game or a challenge and no one really gets hurt. Students who cheat don’t find learning as a priority but getting a good job upon graduation is.
But what those students don’t realize is that while they think no one is getting hurt, people really are. But cheating, there are giving themselves an unfair advantage that they don’t deserve. They are stealing ideas, work, and credit that should be given to other people. They are also cheating their peers of a level playing field and cheating their teachers of their trust. The cheaters don’t realize that they are also cheating themselves out of a real future and a past that they can look on with joy. Instead, they will look back on what they did with shame. When you cheat, you might start out small, maybe peeking over your neighbor’s shoulder for that one answer you don’t quite know, but soon you’ll be stealing term papers off the Internet, and then stealing ideas from your co-workers and so on. The poem “The Man in the Glass” is a very good poem that would help discourage students from cheating, because it hammers in the point that you will always have your conscience to live with. And when they are working, they might be called upon to do a job they aren’t prepared for because they cheated. Eventually, all the cheaters will throw off our society because they will think that cheating is right, and honesty is wrong. And when that sort of mentality dominates our society, then no one will have a fair, level playing field. A cheater is like poison entering the bloodstream, or society.
If East Greenwich High School had an honor code, that would prevent some cheating. Statistically, there are fewer cheaters in college than in middle school or high school because they have an honor code. When a college student is caught cheating, they are usually expelled with probably no refund. But in high school, the student would probably just fail that one assignment. That or the student might be assigned a paper like the one mentioned in the assignment, an essay on the evils of plagiarism. If the stakes in high school were as high as the stakes in college, then there would be a lot less cheaters.
One of the more shocking stories in the article was the student government president who was caught hiding 150 answers to a final exam in his baseball hat. I was shocked because this was someone who had been elected and respected by his peers to represent them. And the fact that he had 150 answers stashed in his hat, hints that this was probably not the first time this person has cheated.
Everybody knows that being honest but getting a bad grade while you classmates are getting great grades but dishonesty can be extremely difficult to take and you might be tempted to cheat. Cheating is an unforgivable moral crime, which is my definition of cheating. It is one of my ideals, because if I can’t even respect myself enough to trust my own work, then how can others respect my work. When we cheat, we are affecting our peers, our teachers, our society, and our future as a whole.
Mini- Reflection: This was a seemingly boring prompt at first but I found it much more interesting to write as I went along.
