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 Cheating Students
by Tom Campbell
February 28, 2008
Cheating on tests is wrong. Students at Chapel Hill High School and, no doubt every school, know this. But at least five students at Chapel Hill High used a master key to break into the school to get answers for an advanced placement test. Evidence indicates they were not alone, nor are we so naďve as to believe this is an isolated example. While not glossing over the impropriety of cheating, it is worth asking what made these students do it.
From almost the time our children enter kindergarten they hear the litany. If you want to be successful and happy in life you have to get a good job and make plenty of money. Now to get that great job you must get a college education, not just an undergraduate degree, mind you, but you will need a masters or doctoral level education. By the way, your degree can’t come from just any college, but from a “prestige” institution. Our young people might not be able to diagram a sentence, but you can be sure they know all the verses to this song.
Getting accepted into these “prestige” universities has become a cutthroat competition. By the 1980’s, the shortage of dorms and classrooms, coupled with the explosive number of applicants, made competition for acceptance fierce. Admissions officers increasingly looked beyond the high test scores at things like essays, extracurricular activities, awards and recognitions or proficiency in sports, arts or specialized activities. A 4.0 grade point average wasn’t good enough when advanced placement courses pushed class rankings higher and higher.
Parents, wanting “what was best” for their children, started urging them into extracurricular activities at tender ages, pushing them harder and harder to make good grades, to get into advanced placement courses, and to excel, excel, excel. Children cowered at having to bring home grades only to hear the all too frequent, “You won’t get into (insert the name of your prestige college here) with this kind of grade.” Pressure from parents was enforced by educators who enjoyed the esteem associated with high-achieving students, not to mention the bonuses that accrued to “Schools of Excellence.”
By high school many of our teens are so tightly programmed, so overworked, so sickly and stressed they can’t possibly enjoy what are portrayed as “the good years.” Far too many teens are so sleep-deprived, emotionally charged and anxious, that they resort to risky behaviors like substance abuse to relieve stress. For some, the escape is suicide, the third leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds.
And we wonder why they cheat on tests? How did we allow this competition to get so far out of control? How did we lose focus of what childhood should be like? Our high school and college students are being forced to act like adults in the business and professional world, or maybe worse.
We may claim we want only the best for our children, but we are hardly treating them that way. What is the purpose of education but to provide the degree of learning necessary for people to enjoy their lives and to earn a level of income so as to maintain an acceptable standard of living, however one may define it? Why have we bought into a culture that equates happiness with achievement and earnings?
Who is cheating who? We think many adults are cheating our students out of a childhood. And cheating, regardless of who is doing it, is wrong. |
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