Do Cheaters Ever Prosper?

Do Cheaters Prosper?

BY HEATHER POLLOCK
Knight Ridder Newspapers

It’s the moment you’ve been dreading for the past week: your big algebra exam. You squirm anxiously in your seat as you wait for the test to drop onto your desk. You haven’t studied, but it’s no big deal: You know you can bluff your way through.

Your teacher says to begin. You pick up your pencil, ready to answer the first question — but you’re completely stumped. Clueless, you nervously look at the paper of the kid next to you, and start to copy his answers. You leave the classroom an hour later feeling somewhat guilty. However, your guilt is soon overcome by a feeling of relief — you might have actually passed.

As students, we are all too familiar with this type of situation. Cheating on tests has become too much of a norm. Students don’t see a problem with cheating because they think everyone does it. And unfortunately, it seems as though almost everyone does do it.

Not only do we see cheating in schools but also in relationships or at work. Pop culture is full of cheaters. Tabloid headlines gleefully note which celebrity is cheating on his or her spouse.

Politicians do it, parents do it, why shouldn’t teens? Society has become accustomed to taking shortcuts and lowering the bar for integrity.

I witnessed an almost identical situation to the aforementioned instance recently in my English class. We were being tested on a book we were reading. Once the tests had been passed out, I looked around. I felt a lack of surprise when I noticed at least six or seven students get out a little cheat sheet and reference it under their seats throughout the entire test.

Not only does this act of dishonesty disappoint me, but it also angers me. Yes, my school has a zero-tolerance cheating policy, so students should obviously abide by it. Right?

Of course. But I think there’s a bigger picture here: Are students really that desperate to achieve that they are forced to cheat? Are they so lazy and unmotivated that they can’t study for a test? Is their self-confidence really that low that they don’t think they can pass without cheating in some way? The answers to these questions remain murky.

Students may feel obligated to cheat not only because they want to succeed in the easiest way possible, but they also believe that honor and ethics are things of the past.

It’s possible that students and people everywhere don’t see a problem with cheating because society and the media have exposed it and made it seem justifiable. For example, after the Clinton scandal, most of his supporters were still on his side. They excused his cheating as a personal matter. If your president is dishonest, then …

I’m not saying that I’m perfect or that I’ve never cheated. In fact, I’m pretty sure almost everyone has, but that doesn’t come close to justifying it. I once wrote the answers on my hand for a history test in seventh grade, and my teacher caught me red-handed — literally. Because this teacher was one of my absolute favorites, there were no words to describe how ashamed, embarrassed and regretful I immediately felt. My excuse for cheating: I had forgotten to study, but I wanted to keep my straight A’s. I thought cheating would help me achieve that. Little did I know that I was only hurting myself.

One does not learn anything by cheating, copying or simply not doing one’s own work. I’m not trying to preach here, but, honestly, what’s the point in cheating? It may be a temporary solution to your problems of laziness or apathy, but how will it permanently benefit you? You haven’t learned anything or gained anything, except how to sneak a peek at someone else’s paper or minimize your handwriting to fit onto a scrap of paper. I would rather achieve in school by reading, studying and doing my own work than by cheating to slide by.

Maybe students feel the need to cheat because they feel the pressure placed upon them by parents and teachers, and even peers, is just too much to handle. This excuse is at least somewhat more realistic than the others. However, teachers and parents want students to succeed by learning on their own and simply doing the best they can.

You’ve probably heard teachers say, “I want to see your own work, not that of the person next to you” a million times, but it’s true. Your intelligence cannot be measured by your peers’ work. As for peer pressure, the same thing applies: Do you really want your fellow students thinking you’re a dishonest person? Think of how you would feel if you studied really hard for a test and students cheated off of you.

You would probably feel, well, cheated. Do cheaters prosper?