Why students cheat

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by Julia Sallo (letters@boulderweekly.com)

Last month, every teacher in the English department at Fairview High School was told to proctor an unusual test—not for any material currently being studied in the class, but about what the district has deemed a very critical matter.

Plagiarism has become a widespread problem throughout the country. U.S. News and World Report found that 80 percent of "high-achieving" high school students admit to cheating, with 51 percent not believing cheating is wrong and 95 percent of that cheating going undetected. Plagiarism is the stealing of another's work, which is obviously wrong. But high school students today see reasons to justify their cheating.

As we all sat there nervously, we were handed a test that read "Academic Integrity Survey" in large, capitalized letters. The next 20 minutes were spent filling out specific questions about how and why we cheat and whether we truly believe our actions to be plagiarism.

All the surveys from guys and girls and all four grades were pooled together and analyzed. The results showed everything the district wanted to see, even if the results were tamed by the possibility in every student's mind of their answers being tracked. It was an obvious opportunity for dishonesty, with an English teacher standing over us and questions such as have you ever "read an abridged version of a book rather than the original." Many students felt less than willing to be honest. I will admit I did not answer every question completely honestly.

The district also has its work cut out for it with Question 8: "Do teachers at your school catch most instances of cheating?" About 82 percent of students said no. When asked why not, one student said they "don't pay enough attention."

Many teachers know exactly how much cheating is going on and ignore some of it out of pity for the pressure-ridden students. Many B grades are rounded up to As for students who do a dozen other activities. Maybe the district administrators should go into their schools once in a while and see why their employees turn a blind eye, or are actually blind, to the heart-wrenching plagiarism epidemic.

Question 11 asked students about possible justifications for cheating. Most popular answers included "course material is irrelevant/unimportant," "test is too hard or there's too much work," and "students need a good grade." Whether pressure is put on students by counselors, parents or themselves, students always feel like they need a good grade, and some will take any course of action to get it.

Should students really be reprimanded for this? Or does the blame lie elsewhere? Students thrown into advanced but irrelevant classes are expected to receive high grades, but this is often out of their grasp. When IB and AP classes are an entire letter grade harder, and yet perfect grades are even more important, high school becomes a game. Some students find it hard to take classes seriously, and the only way to make it around the board (to Harvard or any Ivy League equivalent) is to play the game right, which means shortcutting and plagiarizing.

The question is not why high school students cheat. The question is why we have to do as much as we do. It's just another average student who is on the varsity softball team, president of their youth group, volunteering at the animal shelter, and holding a part-time job. Oh, yes, and they are expected to have straight As.

The only real solution is to weight grades less on memorization of unnecessary facts and more on interpretation of information and creative thinking. Just like in college, high school grades should be based on the thought-provoking essays we write or the creative applications we can make with our study of calculus or chemistry. In this way, the district could solve all of its problems at once. Students would be more captivated by their classes, and many possible options for cheating would be altogether removed.

We should be taught why Napoleon even matters, not forced to memorize the date of his coronation (which, incidentally, was May 26, 1805). We should learn how German nationalism, and all the horror it wrought in the 20th century, is a result in part of Germany's reaction to its conquest by Napoleon and to the values of the French Revolution he imposed at the end of a sword. But most high school students couldn't draw those conclusions.

Thought-provoking work and tests are not the majority of the work we see. As class sizes have increased and work loads have gone up, teachers only have time to write multiple choice tests or assign homework straight out of the textbook. While some teachers have started making multiple tests to avoid students "dropping a pencil" and casually glancing at another test, most teachers just don't have that kind of time. Teachers, like anyone else, have families and other obligations outside of the classroom.

The district needs to reevaluate its "war on plagiarism." Plagiarism can't be fully stopped, or even put under control. As students get older, they get smarter. Cheating is an art form. Who knows—maybe the sneaky ways that juniors and seniors plagiarize and get higher grades on busy work assignments is better preparation for the real world than memorizing the 13 conjugations of the Spanish verb estafar.

Our administrators need to get to the heart and soul of plagiarism and look at the reasons students cheat. With busy students and teachers, and plenty of things pushing high school kids to overachieve, plagiarism will always exist as a necessary way to get everything done, get that last A on the report card and get into the dream school. Maybe if BVSD could take high school seriously, they could see it as the game that it is. And in such a high-stakes game as Fairview, they can then see why cheating matters.

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