Cheating is a Crime

Cheating used to be considered an unmentionable sin. However, in this day and age, it has become more common and somewhat of a daily occurrence. Cheating is more widespread today than in the past. According to the article titled Education: The New Morality, cheating has not been an issue of values, but simply one of practicality. This shows that many view cheating as a mere occurrence and something that can often be skipped over. The reason cheating has become such a pervasive movement is because many students tend to rationalize their cheating behavior. A common rationalization that many students use is, " That 's the only way I 'll get anywhere in life." Many students also tend to incorporate reasons, such as parental pressures,

Honor codes have been a strong subject of dispute over the last few years. Whether to hold students accountable for their own actions, and allow them to control the cheating in a school is, in all regards, a major decision that could potentially be detrimental to a school’s society and reputation. However, the rewards for a successful honor code are exponentially higher than the cost. Schools should always have some form of honor code in place, whether it be something like a signed contract at the beginning of each semester paired with an honor court to hold violators accountable, or something as simple as a statement of trust on a worksheet.

The conflict of whether or not honor codes should be established has been brought up again due to an increase in cheating and collaborating on tests and school work. Recently, a surplus of students have been caught cheating in unexpected places, like Harvard and the University of Virginia. Those colleges are considering using honor codes to counteract the surge of cheating that has arisen. Although there is currently a cheating problem that needs to be dealt with, incorporating honor codes into high schools and colleges is not the most effective way to solve the cheating problem, and will not solve the cheating problem indefinitely. It is very difficult to change a person’s personality and their morals, no matter what paper they sign, but there are ways to make people’s convictions stronger. One of which is student interaction. Like many people, students have a “follow the herd” nature and want to fit in with the crowd. If many students discourage cheating, the “crowd” may choose to not cheat in fear of being shunned. Student interaction is much more effective than honor codes, and is a much less drastic change.

Over the years, cheating does not carry the same stigma it used to represent. Because of competition and expectations, students are doing whatever it takes to achieve an A average. There are students who are fighting for scholarships or for the position to be on the top. Also, parents and teachers are the root cause of this matter because they have advocated the idea that high GPAs will lead to more successful futures. As a result, grades have become the main focus for most students,

As college standards increase yearly, students feel greater pressure to succeed. As a result of the rising academic expectations, cheating has become a national issue and most students have admitted to cheating at least once in their educational career. Overloaded with school work, students see cheating as an advantage and step towards academic success. Thus, cheating results from an urgency to do well in school and being overscheduled.

In Mari Pearlman’s L.A. Times article, “ Cheating In School Reflects Basic Confusion in Society” (1999), she discusses cheating and its effect on students, both, while in school and later in life. Cheating has been around for a long time and now cheating’s grip on students is worsening. With the more often occurrence of cheating in schools, schools need to put their foot down and put a stop to cheating in order to lower the occurrence of cheating in the future. However, there are some that say cheating is not common anymore and is rarely spotted.

Cheating to Succeed In many high schools, colleges, and universities honor codes have been implemented in order to encourage integrity among students with the goal of stopping most misconduct. The sources provided give many examples of how effective or ineffective the honor code system is. Given the accounts and viewpoints, it is obvious that the honor code system works and should be adopted by my school because it helps create an environment which discourages cheating, lowers the amount of plagiarism, and encourages students to take an active role in promoting honesty.

75% of college students cheat at one time or another in their college careers due to laziness, competitive pressures, or simply fear. In “Cheating Lessons: Part 3”, by James M. Lang, he explains that certain learning environments unknowingly give students opportunities to cheat. Lang also provides tactics to help classrooms reduce the numbers of cheating, while aiding students to achieve their academic goals with the right “tools.”

Cheating has been an ongoing procedure that has been occurring since before I was born. This has been a problem for years and continues being so as cheating is becoming more and more common. In the article by LA Times, ¨Cheating in School Reflects Basic Confusion in Society¨ (August 22, 1999) written by Mari Pearlman, she explains how adults want teachers to punish students for cheating although they are doing the same thing, only in different ways. I agree with Mari Pearlman´s analysis on what she has to say about cheating because still to this day, it is all true.

The students are not going to willingly make their lives more difficult than they already are. The amount of homework a student has can be overwhelming. To cheaters, it’s not about integrity or “doing the right thing”. To them, doing the right thing, is doing what needs to be done no matter how you do it . Research shows that 40% of students who have violated the honor code and have not been caught. Cheaters will always find newer and better ways to cheat ,whether it’s at school or at home, and still get away with it. There is no way to get rid of cheating.

When asking a student do they think cheating is bad most will say yes and will even admit to cheating.Cheating doesn’t affect many students on a regular day basis until they have been caught red-handed.When it comes to cheating blame automatically goes to the student but what about the adult as well.Some teachers have admitted to seeing student cheat but haven't said anything because it was on homework.Some teachers have even gone to the depth of helping a student cheat on a test.There was a survey that was taken through all of the high schools asking students if they had ever cheated on a test, the results were that there were 64 percent who cheated,58 who plagiarised, and above all 95 percent of them admitted to cheating of some sort.(Academic Integrity Under Statistics paragraph 3 )Students cheat to make it through a semester and to make their parents proud.Students cheat simply because of lack of knowledge, pressure from the adult looking for them to do their best, and last lack of time.

Why do we give awards? Think about it; every country, government, education system, athletic program, and job field in the world has some sort of system in place for awarding exceptional people. Whether you are in elementary school or a world renowned scientist you have received some sort of award (or position) as a tribute to the things you have excelled in. The human race has a fascination with exceptional things. We hold creativity, intelligence, bravery, uniqueness, and exceptionalism in the highest esteem. We respect people who have gone above and beyond all else to do something incredible. We love to tell survivor stories depicting the triumph of the human soul against all odds. We also have this need to recognize these amazing feats

Students from my high school, Myojo Gakuen high school know that cheating is unacceptable. Yet, they cheated on quizzes or exams by using cell phones, bringing small pieces of paper with answers of test, or teaching answers to other students behind the teacher was back during the test. Not all students cheated on quizzes and exams; however, some students often cheated on quizzes and exams. One of my classmates, for example, used to cheat a lot. Even the teachers kept telling him to not cheat on quizzes and exams, he could not stop cheating. He always did not have a confidence that he could get a great score without cheating because he did not study a lot, and he made excuses why he cheated on the test to the teachers every time the he was caught cheating on quizzes or exams. At the end, his mother came to school and the teachers told his mother what he always did during the tests and he finally stopped cheating. Other students at Myojo Gakuen high school did not care about those students who cheated on the tests unless they made noise or interrupted to other student’s forces during the test. Additionally, the students who did not cheat on the tests thought that it was each student’s decision and responsibility that if they wanted to cheat on the tests or not. Students at LaGuardia Community College, on the other hand,

The article “Moving From Cheating to Academic Honesty” by Eugene Bratek, speaks about cheating and how it is affecting students. It explains that students have learned to cheat to get a higher grade in school, and because of this many students at the top also cheat to stay at the top. Another topic the article spoke of is, that students use copy and paste, cheating by using others ideas and information. I completely agree that students have taken a liking to cheating to get a better score on a test and to get a better grade overall.

Schools today have a very large problem with academic dishonesty. Not only high schools, but also colleges as well have and abundance of students who cheat regularly. Although cheating is addressed in many school policies, a shocking number of students get away with it, and teachers do nothing about it. Whether its copying someone’s assignment to get theirs done, or plagiarizing an entire paper, students cheat.