Forgive Cheating Students?

It's a sad commentary on our culture when this kind of thinking is labeled 'progressive'.

Just for comparison, consider this:

Teaching mathematics in Iraq

There is not a problem as far as forgiven a student for cheating The an individual choice, but AFTER BEING DULY PUNISHED.

What is going on here with the educational system. And not this walk in my shoes BS.

Teachers and school administration have a job to do. So do it, like the rest of us.

There are teaching kids to BS there way through life, and as AH is, pay now, or pay later with interest.

You wrote, "Teachers and school administration have a job to do. So do it, like the rest of us."

Don't forget that the parents have a role in this, too, and too many are absent in their part.

of course, that is where it starts. Only thing is, if the student passes, it pretty hard to see what the problem is. I believe that is the reason the educational system gives a pass. Take the path of least resistance.

Pass or fail in an exam should not be the decisive factor. Nowadays reference books and websites can help a professional in a precarious situation. if he understand the correct approach he should be accepted.

Unlike the earlier West Potomac High School thread started here at CR4 I can see some plausible merit here but it all hinges on many things. What disciplinary consequence was imposed and will a non-zero academic grade consequence still be imposed? (The re-test should not have the same weight as the earlier test and it should be a considerably more difficult exam.) Will the student's other class tests now get scrutinized for cheating?

What I expect will happen is that for a time the re-testing will just clearly show that those who cheat do not grasp the material at all and that the zero grade will be close to what they should receive with the re-test. The merit that I mentioned earlier though is that likely there will be a small minority of cheating students that don't actually have to cheat to pass. These few students may get their act together under the heightened scrutiny of being labeled a cheater.

On the other hand, no single exam (possibly the final exam) should be so critical to a valid grade that a single zero in the grade book (file?) cannot be overcome. So retesting seems like a pointless exercise.

Now that I've bent back so far that I can see where I came from let me turn on the focused rant. If this was the only loose standard employed at this school, or if this was not a standing policy but a single incident response to a particular situation then I could accept my earlier comments here as a reasonable analysis of a caring school administration. But if the other CR4 thread is true and this is the same school where an F is not possible then this administration is clearly letting down the entire school body. I would not be at all surprised that every child applying to a college or university from this school will now have to climb even bigger mountains to just be admitted. I would not be surprised if the few college bound students who can overcome the stigma that this school passes academic cheaters who cannot fail, that these few students cannot get any merit scholarships until at least their sophomore year.

If ever there was an administration that should be forced to explain themselves for wasting public funds, this is the one.

¿¿ No Child Left Behind ??

Carramba--muy sabroso!

Cheating, taking advantage of your resources, competitive edge, bringing a new tool to an old job. Call it what you want but they are all the same concept tho only difference is just where the line got drawn differently.

In school they say that cheating limits a persons chances to learn new things yet in our lives as adults we take every advantage was can to find ways to do our jobs and work with as little effort as possible by augmenting what we don't know or what we know to be tedious with tools and resources that we continually seek out and implement. We don't learn everything there is to know about everything. Thats why as adults we find people who are good at what we are not good at and hire or trade with them in order to get things done that we are not willing able or capable of doing ourselves.

Most of us could do complex math long hand when we where younger but how many dropped that concept the first day we had access to a $5 calculator so that we did not have to continue to waste our time? How many of us since now own $200 calculators so that we can do far more complex calculations even faster so that we can now spend even less time doing even more complex calculations quicker?

How many of us became perfect spellers and writers? How many of us use word processors and spell checks because learning to spell every word and being able to write perfectly structured sentences is not what we get paid for at our jobs?

In some instances cheating is wrong but far to often when those rules are applied to the real life environment we work and live in we would be seen cheating constantly all in order to get more done with less effort and to hopefully be rewarded for working smarter more efficiently or more creatively not slower and in less capacity than our resources will allow us to if the had been used.

We are not talking about taking advantage of a situation with a short cut brought on by experiences or learned.

But cheating to the point of incompetence.

In one instance you are using a tool to augment your abilities.

However, in the case of cheating on an exam you are clearly choosing an immoral act by violating the terms and agreements to the test. The rules are clear and the student is clearly violating those agreed rules.

The crux of the school's argument is that if the student is caught in the act of cheating it simply nullifies the current test and a new test will be submitted. This is considered academically fair because it does not change the net equation, or so is the claim.

The fallacy of that argument is two-fold. First, it would be possible to leverage this approach to the student's advantage. If they cheat and do not get caught, then they obtain a higher score than would have been otherwise possible. If they get caught, then a makeup exam is scheduled, which gives the student an unfair advantage over students that do not cheat because they now have additional time to study for the makeup exam and perform better than they would have if they had not cheated.

The second fallacy is that the proposed solution of a makeup exam does not mirror real life. In real life if you break the rules and cheat, the consequences are sometimes dire. If a student is reinforced to use cheating as a successful tool to achieve a goal, then how does that instill faithfulness to a partner or significant other?

What will happen if cheating is considered acceptable for passing the medical board exam and becoming a doctor? Would you be okay with a cardiac surgeon that cheated on his exams performing surgery on you or a family member?

"What will happen if cheating is considered acceptable for passing the medical board exam and becoming a doctor? Would you be okay with a cardiac surgeon that cheated on his exams performing surgery on you or a family member?"

that in itself raises a whole different set of issues. Would you want a doctor who had perfect exam scores but just isn't skilled at the hands on part of being a doctor or would you rather have a doctor that cheated at his written exams but is naturally skilled in the craft of repairing people?

The reason I ask is I know about as many people who where A students in school but have little to no skills at real life problem solving as I know people who just don't test well but are very skilled and who do excellent work.

I think the overall members of CR4 themselves show that difference quite well. We have by the book engineers here who cant do basic hands on intuitive problem solving and we have average people here who can engineer circles around many of the high paid professionals yet have no real credentials to their names at all.

To me the whole cheating issue comes down to what was cheated on and what level of significance does it hold in the grand scheme of life. Unfortunately the concept of cheating is never a black or white all or nothing situation rather it is a highly grey realm where the overall complexity of life and all its nuances make ones actions or views of ones actions highly relative to the perspectives of the viewer and the viewed.

You say I cheated because I did not follow your way of doing something. I say I found a better way to get the results I was wanted in the end. So what do you want, a A+ grade doctor who is all thumbs with the hands on work or a cheater who fudged his way past a written exam but has the hands on skills to easily and safely fix your problem?

Excellent reply, GA The attitude of a cheater if he gets his way leads to serious break downs of ethics and integrity in his later life which can inflict untold miseries on decent honest people. At the very least the student should be sent down a grade to repeat his term with some serious guidance as to the the rights & wrongs & consequence of his actions. I am sorry to say the current batch teachers have been brain washed to surround there wrong doer students with cotton wool instead of correct positive action.

It seems that my attempt to present both sides of the argument to show that one side has no argument, failed. You took the clearer road AH and again presented an excellent argument. I'm glad that it agrees with my opinion. A GA vote from me.

Cheating must always be punished. The perceived reward for a good academic grade should be obliterated and the disciplinary punishment should dissuade any other individual from attempting to cheat again. Every cheater is a con-man.

It is one thing to inadvertently take an unfair advantage due to circumstance. (This would merit a re-test.) The blog presentation though is about students that clearly violated the honor code and clearly cheated.

Suspend their academic carcasses over a low flame and rotate slowly to improve basting.

Thank you.

I can't say what the punishment should be. It depends on the circumstance, but the lesson should be to instill right from wrong.

Everyone is different, so the mechanism to impart that lesson varies from individual to the next.

Wow! I have reached 300 GA just before the year ends. ;-) Opps, there goes my modesty.

GA!

Perhaps the MOST appropriate of responses to this - and, frankly, many other - purportedly PROFESSIONAL web forum threads, including most of those on our beloved CR4.

I hope I'd run out of ethical space were I to try assigning more than one GA to you, my friend; regardless, I'd sure run out of the willingness to see if I even COULD give you more than one because that's hardly the point of GA's, right? That's hardly the point of the rules of our little micro-civilization, CR4; rules meant to ... well, "moralizing is for long-dead folk made suddenly great by being quoted out of context" some dead folksperson once said. I think; maybe that was me. Naw, I'm not yet LONG dead.

But that still doesn't stop me from cramming as many GA GA GA GA GA GA GA GA GA into this post as I can; but, come to think of that, even, such is nowadays an unsafe succession of characters in the modern Western world where a self-proclaimed "Lady" might have captured too much attention with it.

I hope you get my point, anyway, he says, cowering back to "lurker" status but not before saying:

Yours was a GREAT answer, ethically, morally, and professionally ON POINT!

Regards,

Gene

PS: Yes, I know; it's not the LENGTH of each post, it's the NUMBER of posts. Perhaps that also has a bearing on the topic at hand?

Dear Gene,

Thanks for your comments.

Sure the post has merit, but when you have something to say, get to the point and not use a GA to a post with merit to try to get your own point across

The post to which you refer is a pretty good aphorism, with which few people would claim to disagree (although many seem to disagree in practice). Billy Graham popularized this with his version:

"When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost."

However, it does not seem to contribute directly to the discussion, which is about the advisability of giving a student a 0 on a test in when he is caught cheating. Of course it is wrong to cheat. Of course the cheating student is showing less-than-admirable character. Is a zero on a test the right punishment? In some schools expulsion is considered the right punishment. How about public humiliation? What about paddling... we used to do that. Cut off a finger?

The principal would claim that he has the character and courage to promote an unpopular stance, and that it is unethical to use academic grades as punishment. (He'd argue, I suppose, that a test in which the student cheats is an invalid test, so the student must be retested.)

I agree with mrswamy's quote, but don't see it as a particularly good answer in this context. I mention this only because I am struck by your level of gushing: you write as if you've had a religious conversion. Had you not seen the quote before?

Cheating, taking advantage of your resources, competitive edge, bringing a new tool to an old job. Call it what you want but they are all the same concept tho only difference is just where the line got drawn differently.

No, cheating is not at all the same as taking advantage of your resources, etc. They are not matters of degree, any more than rape and consensual sex are just matters of degree.

Cheating is an unethical act, that should be punished, especially in school. Either you follow the rule or you don't, and if you don't you pay the consequence. We don't need more Bernie Madoffs.

The idea of giving cheaters a special advantage over non-cheaters (who do not have the opportunity to retake a test if they don't like their grade) is utterly and totally wrong-headed.

Good point.

Several times I opened a an exam paper and thought "oh shite! this is totally "other" to what the teacher stressed".

This would be a perfect solution; "get caught cheating, and you get a new exam".

Odds are, it would contain enough of what I was told to focus on, and I'd breeze through.

It's a far better option than hoping to score well enough to get a 'deferred' - it's like "automatic", no begging and no "downside".

YES! cheating works!

I shall learn it!

For those who don't - are suckers!

take this out of the classroom. Who here is against industrial esponage and theft. Are you chinese?

Again this view is relative to the persons involved. Pretty much everything we have and use in our modern life is built on adaptations of someone else's ideas, design, concepts and work.

When you loose out on financial reward for your ideas because you now have a competitor who can do what you did but faster cheaper or better the customer could care less about the fact you are no longer getting paid top dollar for your idea.

You made a widget that costs you $5 to make and you sell it for $25 and consider the $20 profit your right because you designed the widget. I see your widget and figure out how it works and is built built and realize I can make my own for $4 and sell them for $15 while providing a better product. Who is right and who is wrong in this scenario and who do you think the customer cares about either way?

From my perspective as a customer I want the better quality lower cost widget and I could care less about your financial situation and how it came to be becauseI have my own financial problems to worry about and spending extra to support your legacy fee is not in my interests of concerns.

Regarding who I am I am a generic white American and I buy Chinese because its cheaper ans much of their products are in fact superior to what our country now makes and I could care less who did what to get me that product I wanted at a lower price. If anything I see it as the greedy person is getting what he deserves for not providing a higher quality product at the lowest possible price.

To be fair I also have no problems with someone copying what I have created in order to provide a better product at a lower cost as well. I would consider it my just rewards for not doing my best to create the best and provide the best at the lowest price. So if that makes me a cheater in one persons perspective I could care less because I see it as fair play from mine.

It all about who controls the moral majority and being an American who full well knows our countries economic, business and political history we are one of the last one who should be whining about who did what to get where they are now.

A company (company 1) can make a widget that costs $25.00 to make but a competitor (company 2) can make it for $5.00. But company 1 spent millions to develop it, company 2 didn't.

I have always found that people with unethical behavior try to justify their actions with with reasoning that you are using.

I believe they feel no shame, because they have no honor.

"separate the disciplinary consequence from the academic consequence."

Gimme a frickin break. Let's pay prisoners to be in jail to separate the punishment from the financial consequence of being unemployable while you're in jail. A good con man can make $200,000 a year, so let's pay all prisoners $200,000 so that the not-so-good cons don't feel disadvantaged.

Educators say they are just trying to help struggling students from giving up.

But this policy does not help struggling students. These educators' ethics have become so twisted that they think that giving an advantage to cheaters helps them rather than harms them.

This is so bizarre that I wonder if it has been reported correctly.

But then there's Atlanta, where cheating is promoted by teachers and administration. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Values based education system is can minimize these type of incidents. Inculcating basic values in early stage of one's life is the combined responsibility of a parent and a teacher.

Exams should not test a student's memory but skill and ability to think

Not necessarily true. Some courses are not predominantly deductive. Organic chemistry and anatomy are good examples.

Exams should test what is relevant for the course.

Beside that, what is your argument here?

IMHO this will "Teach" these students that rules are not important. Laws are insignificant when you can go around them. The desire to help them inthis case wil do more harm. Tough lesson to learn but better to learn it now than latter on in life!

What I am getting at is that in real life to cheat or not is heavily biased by the rules themselves. Cheating may be defined as using and unfair advantage to gain something but then how may rules do we have that are in place to do nothing more than prevent fair or equal opportunity to others?

If you are cheating against an unfair disadvantage placed on you by others who are using some unfair rules to keep things in their advantage then what?

Life's not fair and we learn that at an early age but a few of us now and then realize at some point that many times cheating the cheats is the only way to get a fair game.

I didn't make the rules of life we are taught but some other humans did. I didn't agree to those rules so why should I disadvantage myself because of them. Whats fair or unfair is sort of like who's religion is the right one. What you believe is right is the only relative to your system of beliefs and standards.

BTW I am just playing devils advocate on this cheating issue since we all know not all rules are made to make life fair and unbiased for everyone. I will cheat a cheater every chance I get just as I will ignore any rule that I do not see as being fair or correct by my reasonings of what I have come to view as being fair or correct.

When people are caught breaking the rules there are consequences. Teaching children that you can cheat to your advantage is wrong. The ones hurt by this silly school district is not the cheaters, it is the hard working students. They will be graduating from a school that promotes the advantages of cheating. All of them will be stained with this label.

Yes, in real life there are cheaters that break the rules. There are also bank robbers, murderers, child molesters and rapists.

This should equip them well for stealing the credit for others' work in the future.

Do away with the game and that will get rid of the cheating.

Sounds like a win-win situation for the cheaters. If they don't get caught, they get a better grade. If they do, they get to take the test a second time and get a better grade. Maybe they should teach honesty in schools.

It would be nice if they taught "Honesty", but when the entire Administration is filled with "Dishonesty", thanks to Government Regulations, I don't think that will ever happen. At least not in my lifetime.

teach honesty and ethics in that environment. That would be called an oxymoron.

Examination should test skill and not honesty. In 1960's there was a student who was sacked from Institute for cheating in exam although he was best in workshop practice. We were good in exam but our hands were not skilled. The present system of exams should be revised to accept skill and not memory power

but when you accept cheating, then it does not stop.

He cheated, and he knew the rule. He got sacked. Good.

We can test for skills (as happens in a pilot's flight test) and we can test for knowledge (as happens in the pilot's ground school tests). Cheating is unacceptable and completely independent of skill or knowledge.

In my university the best-organized cheating rings were among the pre-med students, who were so obsessed with eventually making a lot of money that they would do anything to get the highest grades, to be able to go on to the best med schools. Many of these students could have done well without cheating, but any of them who were caught should have been sacked: it doesn't matter what their skill level or potential might be.

You can differentiate between civilized and yet to be civilized by the one's acceptance of the rules or one's cheating habits. One can cheat to survive as that is something very basic need of animal world. One gives up cheating in civilized world. Not all people have become civilized.

or the dimise of a democracy.

true. some learn to cheat. rob, kill. you make law and jail for them.

Determining the reason for the behavior is what is needed. A student who cheats either sees no value in the material (teacher's fault), is too lazy to study, or is overwhelmed with problems or responsibilities outside the classroom. Cheating is a symptom of a disease - dishonesty. It is also a learned behavior. Does the student have an admirable role model from which to learn good character and virtue? I think that classes in morality should begin at a very young age. This class should include rewards for virtuous behavior and consequences for immoral choices, just like in real life. Practical examination should replace written in many circumstances. The entire educational system is antiquated and ineffectual, IMHO. Colleges are even worse. They have become a business designed to employ professors and administrators by earning grant money designed to increase corporate profits, promote sports and force students to take courses that simply distract from what they need to learn in order to go out in the world and earn a living.

Determining the reason for the behavior is what is needed. A student who cheats either sees no value in the material (teacher's fault), is too lazy to study, or is overwhelmed with problems or responsibilities outside the classroom.

The reason for the behaviour is dishonesty. The other issues are beside the point. We don't need to determine the reason for the cheating, we need to punish it fairly and consistently. Getting a 0 is mild punishment. There have been (still are I hope) universities in which cheating gets you thrown out.

Public schools are paid for by society. Society does not benefit from cheaters, and so it makes little sense to pay schools to reward cheating.

lack of honesty is not a disease.

I was using the terms disease and symptoms as an analogy; cheating being the symptom of the disease of dishonesty. If you want to change or prevent the behavior, you must first understand the reason for it first. It's simple logic.

You're missing most of the point here. Why has a single exam become so important that nothing supercedes it, including right and wrong?

Normal teaching has taken a back seat to the value of an exam. This trend has been growing for a number of years and nothing seems to be contradicting this. Everything in education has been so infused with test scores, including funding, that even the curriculum has been redesigned to match tests.

Start with this single issue if you want seriously want to put education on track.

Actually I did not miss your point. I mentioned it already in the middle of post #6. But the initial focus of the blog was this absurd policy of allowing a cheater to retake a test. I agree that the single test result should not be so critical to a student's final grade that a zero averaging into a full scholastic year of grades should not make it impossible to pass. So when a student gets caught cheating they should get a zero.

If we are going to take tangential opinions on the topic of education, allow me to add my pet peeve. What bothers me about this entire whirlwind of finger pointing that is happening today with education is the absence of blaming the students for their poor performance. A teacher really cannot force any student to learn. The student has to put in the work. A teacher can only teach the material. The most gifted teacher cannot reach every student.

Oh good - pet peeves!

He sort of has a point that increasingly funding is linked to an institution's "performance". This can be "graduates" or "graduates who gain employment in the discipline" (as opposed to as bellhops)

The former is obviously an easier measure, so "less failing" is the next logical step after 'lowering the bar'.

And frankly, if you have compromised your goals, principals and so morality, for a handful of silver, and lowered the bar, then the next descent ........

I didn't mean to go off on a tangent, so please accept my apology if that's what I did. I also have the utmost respect for teachers as I work with them almost every day. I also have no problem with a kid getting a zero for cheating. Having worked in education for the last 20+ years, I have watched the entire system become so dependant on test scores that I see this particular issue just being one more symptom of the same problem. Its not just the student's grade that might be affected. They can get what they earn. Ask a teacher how fast they find themselves in trouble with administration if their student's test scores slip even a little.

No need to apologize for taking an important tangent. I was more upset that your tangent implied that you approved of the idea that a cheater could retake a test.

Yes, the student's test scores have become too much of a metric for the teachers. At the same time, a class with a sudden drop or rise in performance should be quietly investigated to see if a teacher needs help or worse. Egos, pride and other personality clashes between teacher and administration can inadvertently quickly turn a well meaning inquiry into an inquisition. Just look at our little flourish here.

Nice one Del.

milo

Ditto. As usual, the cat claws right to the point.

Exactly Del. Nor engineer nor scientist nor doctor... nor supporting technician of any kind. If the individual can't be relied upon for the simplest observation and recording task, they are no good for any real practical work.

I don't believe in blocking a person's life path for one mistake made when young. Any student caught cheating should be failed in the course, and should be made to take and pass an ethics remediation course before they are eligible to reapply to take that course again.

Anyone caught cheating again after that, should not be permitted to enter science or engineering.

"Any student caught cheating should be failed in the course, and should be made to take and pass an ethics remediation course..."

I think you're correct on the need for some teaching about character issues. The problem is that in this supposedly "Age of Enlightment" where everyone should be able to choose for themselves what is right and wrong and allowable, what are we going to teach in this "ethics remediation" course? What kind of standards are we supposed to abide by, if everyone decides what is ok and what they tolerate individually?

If there aren't standards of right and wrong based upon something (I would choose Biblical principles) that don't change, this is the thinking and subsequent problems we wind up with.

Anyone caught cheating again after that, should not be permitted to enter science or engineering.

Are you sure you just want to limit a person of low character to jobs/careers that only deal with science and engineering? Character, either good or bad, has far reaching implications to our society, regardless of what field you work in. I will always choose to hire a person of high moral character, even if they need more technical training; than someone who may be great tehnically, but is willing to compromise their integrity for the sake of some sort of gain.

Bill Clinton is a good example of this. He had the technical skills to be a great President but because of great moral faults, he surrounded himself with like-thinking people, he acted according to his faulty character and he lost his ability to lead with credibility. He was a result of this thinking that said it was ok for each person to decide on his own what was right and there were people who supported that and said what he did in private didn't have anything to do with what he did publicly.

When we allow people in leadership positions with this moral relativism mindset we shouldn't be surprised with the results.

What we are in our character has everything to do with how we operate in our families, business, in public. We won't do business with people if we don't trust them to do what they say they would do, when they said they would do it and how they said they would do it. You can't separate a person from their actions, which are based upon what is inside them in their character.

"I will always choose to hire a person of high moral character, even if they need more technical training"

I have a friend who engineers custom audio/electronic filters, and builds them, in a little 4 or 5 man factory/shop. He has little automation, with none of it being pick-and-place/board-stuffing systems, and thus he has to rely heavily on his workers to get the product made and out on time. He won't hire college degreed engineers he doesn't know personally, preferring to hire farm boys from the area around his factory that he has known all their lives (He is pretty elderly, so he hasn't known them all his life. OTOH, he has seen them grow up from birth!) because, as he puts it "I can teach anyone to be an electronic tech or engineer, but I can't teach them character. I want people who already HAVE a work ethic!"

I agree with him. His age and experience work as a guide for me, also.

I think you're correct on the need for some teaching about character issues.

One would hope that this teaching is done by parents, rather than schools. We'd like to think that teachers are of good character, but they are no better than (heaven forbid) engineers. But are parents fit? Cheating is just as prevalent in the highest rated schools as in the lowest.

We didn't need "character education" in the 50's (I think, or seem to remember.) Maybe we don't now. Crime rates have been going down, even though you might expect them to go up with the economy in such bad shape. Now people of all colors can ride on the bus, live in the neighborhood of their choice, and vote. Women are now paid almost as much as their male counterparts. Corporations can no longer poison or injure employees and pollute neighborhoods as easily as they could before OSHA and the EPA. Ford motor is no longer run by a Nazi sympathizer. Overall, things are probably getting better.

I suppose the main reason we are having this discussion is that this principal's views are newsworthy, because they are weird. Things are probably not as bad as they seem. When I have worked with kids, I've found them to be just like we were, but better informed.

What kind of standards are we supposed to abide by, if everyone decides what is ok and what they tolerate individually?

The most basic standards (prohibitions against cheating, lying, stealing, killing, violence, adultery) are common among virtually all religions and among most atheists and agnostics. All these groups say something like "Do onto others before they do onto you!" We can, and generally have, agreed on these standards: It seems unlikely the other schools will follow the lead of this principal.

The post modern ethic, in which all alternatives were judged equal, in light of cultural relativism, is on the way out. The pendulum swings, but the swings are probably becoming smaller. (Although the Southern Poverty Law Center tells me the the number of hate groups has gone up dramatically recently.)

As a whole, the world gets along in ways that were almost unthinkable when I was a kid, hiding under my desk at school, waiting for the atom bomb drill to be over.

Then there's the other perspective... involving the world, hell, and a hand basket. I vacillate as much as I pontificate.

Are you sure you just want to limit a person of low character to jobs/careers that only deal with science and engineering?

Not at all! But the practical, real-world consequences of corruption in science, medicine and engineering are staggering. Science is publicly believed to be the ultimate authority for "the truth" about practical matters. If "cheating" is on the rise, and persons of low character are employed, as Del pointed out, even in the simplest observation and data recording task, there are serious consequences. Garbage in, garbage out, and your house falls down, bridge collapses, or other catastrophe. Your medicine kills you by poisoning your liver, instead of prolonging your life. And so on.

The value and the necessity of truthfulness in science and engineering is pretty straightforward, and should be easy for anyone to learn and understand, without any need for a religious background as source of authority. The ethics of the golden rule in dealing with others is equally important, but also doesn't require a specific religion for a child to learn, understand and apply it. It just makes sense. Anyone who fails to teach this to their children is not doing their job as a parent, whether they use the bible as authority or simple common sense and reasoning.

I agree with you, that I would sooner employ a person of good character and teach them what they need to know for the job, than a person of doubtful character with education credentials - which can hardly be trusted!

Yes, another example of pathological science:

Autism Study Retracted due to Fraud

Exactly.

Cheating in tests or main exams somehow had become a practice among few students.

The principal's decision had been genuine going for positive handling of the student.

The main features students tend to copy are subjects like- essays, mathematical derivations, mathematical problems, circuits, formulae,chemical procedures and data based questions etc which needs extensive by hearting. It will be better on the question setter to avoid such questions while setting the questions.

One more major issue is question setters simply follow previous question papers and do cutting pasting type of questions[ some times not even knowing the subject].

Best thing about handling such copying prone students is to make him understand and reproduce verbally or orally in the class itself. It calls for good deal of patience on the teacher's part. Combining good students to informally teach to fellow students is not a bad idea. Another important aspect is not to rush through lessons, the teacher can allow discussions, doubt clearing sessions among students themselves to enhance better understanding.

The teacher is the prime responsible element in the learning process. make it effective with your own style and never forget to ensure that, everyone in your class had understood your teaching as well as putting up constant short reminder questions. They are just beginners.

I think your suggestions for promoting learning in general are very good. However, I think you may be jumping to a unwarranted conclusion here:

The principal's decision had been genuine going for positive handling of the student.

We can't be sure what his intention was, but promoting cheating by giving the cheater an advantage over the honest student, by giving him a retest option (that the honest student doesn't not have to improve his own grade) is anything but positive.

Further, the principal's motive may have been anything but pure. In Atlanta, a very large US city, there has been an ongoing scandal having to do with school administrators cheating to make their schools' test scores appear better than they are.

But regardless of motive, promoting or excusing cheating cannot be seen as a positive thing.

Hi Moronic,

There are serious issues like even engg/ diploma students committing suicides on being caught for copy/ mal practices.ii is all about how students respond.

Too much stuffing, compelled studies, lack of conceivability in students, lack of interests in teachers, half baked products and lot more complications.

The fact is most of us follow what our proceeder's had left behind.In real life also most of our actions are copied based on others model/ experience.

If the student realises his responsibility, it makes everything alright, an important quality teachers need to inculcate in students- under standing, reproducing and applying.

This question arises due to our present system of schools and exams. At the ages of 10,13 ,16,18 there should be public exams and only the best should go to college or university and others to be sent to blue collar jobs,clerical jobs etc. Students should be evaluated by performance in the class and not by a single exam at the end of the year.

It made me kind of sick to watch members of the Football Team lay cheat sheet on the floor between their seats for tests.

With a wink and nod they were never questioned even when the Professor walked across the papers leaving his foot print on them. I wondered if this was his way of protesting the schools orders.

http://www.usma.edu/committees/honor/info/main.htm

milo

It will be a big 'adjustment' for kids out of the school in focus, to adopt those values.

High standards, High achievement.

Low standards, No achievement.

Milo

Yeah but, they are really just the base standards you need to achieve at anything.

That CHET approach is interesting in the "teacher" context too.

"considered to be one of the most progressive schools in the U.S.A." What the heck is "progressive" about lowering the bar for performance and behavior? The "leadership" of this school system must be complete morons. "Right is wrong and wrong is right". These guys have gotten it all bass ackwards.

Have we forgotten what the purpose of schooling is?

It is to assist in the process of development of our young citizens. Schooling is intellectual, social, physical and personal development of skills so they can become responsible, accountable, contributing members of society whether they run a business or work for someone as an employee.

Teaching them that abdicating their responsibility to study, learn and put forth effort is ok is moronic. Good results never come easy. I've heard it said that "success is always on the other of side of inconvenience and hard work".

You can't separate results from the effort it took to get the results and this is a terrible lesson to teach our kids. When will we finally get smart and deal properly with pathetic excuses of leadership like this and show them the door? People will either suffer or benefit because of the leadership they are exposed to. Are these kids and parents benefitting or suffering because of this idiotic ideology?

Would you want the results of this educational system working for you and solving problems? The kids that come out of this school system will be ones who feel entitled to good results; without the blood, sweat and tears of hard work and they won't know how to think for themselves. They will forever think that someone else will bail them out of whatever difficulty they chose to put themselves in.

Let's keep the bar high and expect great things of students. They will strive to meet those high expectations when we set the example and the environment for them to thrive in.

All through life we have to live with consequences of our behaviour. If they haven't learned this in the past it is time they did. It could make life much easier in the future.

Ummmm:

All through life we USED TO have to live with consequences of our behaviour. If they haven't learned this in the past it is time they did. It could make life much easier in the future.

There. Now its perfect!

Milo

Fraid I disagree with the edit Milo.

You are suggesting that at some point, people no longer will, or have to - not the case.

They just don't know what their consequences are yet.

Bit like the idiot who thought up the concept OP'ed

Well, what I tried to convey was we used to have standards but now as demonstrated in the op, we don't.

Milo

There was a decade in Australian education where they "reformed high school education" with what was named The Wyndham Scheme.

It virtually wiped out Science as a subject and career. The Country is still paying for that.

It has gone on to pay in more and more vocational areas, mostly because the Wyndham lot eventually took over education, but don't have the "The Three R's", to patch up the blunders in 'basics' like "The Three R's".

Since introduction "the scheme" has been modified in cycles, at 12 to 15 year intervals, which is how long it takes to realize it's output are unemployable because they can't add, or spell, or punctuate, or comprehend written matter, or string two thoughts together in sequence, or are totally lacking in ambition, or "work ethic".

Or kindergarten to professorial appointment, is run by the 'lowest common denominator', which is refreshed lower every 15 years, across the board, in education, industry capability and broader society.

The sad thing is, the biggest "consequence" is, they aren't well enough educated to see the consequences. The OP probably sees us as 'setting upon him' for no conceivable reason. The OP is the "first of the consequences"

Or just as Dr. Wyndham was a 'consequence' of a system grown a bit too 'absolute', he brought on a set of consequences that negated 'absolute' with out understanding the consequences - and that 'inability to understand' is what has perpetuated.

Which is a long way of saying I fully agree - but just need to rant on how we got here began with "our standards" being a tad too 'absolute'.

Before I graduated high school 32 years ago.....you had two choices if caught. Take a ZERO for the test or retakke it and get two full points removed from the score you get....(I.E. an A becomes a C).

Why should a cheater get extra time to study and get the same grade someone that did the right thing got.

I think it is method to correct and rehabilitate to some extent and can be considered a kind of behavioral therapy. There is no scope for comparison.

No excuse for it, either.

None.

Do it right, or pay the price.

Behavior Therapy assumes that the student WANTED to do it right, but couldn't for reasons beyond his/her control. Rubbish. Cheating is the resource of people who don't want to do it right, and don't want to take the penalty for NOT doing it right. Giving them a pass only teaches them further that NOT DOING IT RIGHT is the most productive for the least work.

FAIL

Both as a student, and as an educator/parent, that's what you are setting up to do with this behavior.

Realization starts at finding out fault with the person and exposing it in public.

The second stage is the response of the authorities to such act which they may consider to be treated in some manner. This act may considerably differ as solution is not one and degree of punishment likely to vary.

One solution may be to kill the people who cheat in order to see less such people in the society by creating fear among who are next likely to be of similar type. Most of the countries of the world do not accept this treatment method. I am not sure even if China has has this policy.

Second solution is to remove the person for life to be part of the education or work system and make the person bagger for life. Some countries do have this policy as hard deterrent. Affected person's life is almost doomed.

Third method is to put person in jail along with other criminals like murderers drug traffickers and and expect worst kind of environment to further ruin the life.

Fourth kind treatment is rehabilitation therapy which advanced countries do try and I consider them more civilized than others. Their method is caring type which may cure 50% among those were having problem. People who do wrong are of different nature and much depends on how they learn about correcting themselves. No one expects 100% results for such treatment but it is very likely to be one of the best working policy if you look at the results.

People who do wrong are different class of people and as long as they do not hurt others and only deviate to minor extent, need to be corrected if that is possible. Hopefully it is done for good.