Cheating is becoming more and more common in schools these days. It is sad to say that students are even able to purchase term papers or other types of written work from the Internet. Can you believe that? Sites are actually paying writers to write term papers and then students all over the country are buying them!
What is cheating? Cheating at school happens when a child copies his or her work from another child. It occurs when a child pretends that the work done is his own, when in reality someone else did it (see above!). Cheating occurs when a child marks an answer correct on his or a friend’s paper, when the answer is actually wrong (this obviously occurs when children are allowed to correct his or her own work). Cheating also happens when a child changes his score on an assignment, thus improving his grade.
Why do some children cheat? Cheating has occurred for years, but it is getting worse. Why cheat? Kids cheat for several reasons, one of these reasons is so the child won’t look dumb in comparison to his peers. Other reasons kids cheat: they want a higher grade, they don’t want to get in trouble at home for bad scores, or they cheat to get out of trouble. Whatever the reason, students in school must know that cheating is completely wrong and unacceptable.
Schools take cheating very seriously. I still remember back to 5th grade when I actually cheated. Yes me, a teacher, actually once cheated on a 50 states test. I cheated off of my best friend. The worst part is, of course, our teacher figured it out and I didn’t own up to what I had done. Because our teacher couldn’t tell who did the actual cheating, we both got zeros on our test. I was ashamed and embarrassed. Our parents were called. For me, it was the worst experience of my time in school.
It wasn’t until high school that I actually told my friend what I had done. We got a good laugh about it then, and when I see her at class reunions, we still chuckle about it. However, it really isn’t something to laugh about. I know this because as a teacher, I realize just how serious cheating is.
Schools these days have much stricter penalties for cheating compared to when I was in school, perhaps because it is so much easier to find ways to cheat now. Have you ever cheated? Has your child? If so, what did the school do and what did you, as a parent do?