On cheating, ethics, morality

[the smiling weirwood]

I was referring to the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, if anyone was curious.

Personally I share Teresa's abhorrence of the treatment that has been meted out to those involved the cases mentioned. I can't believe such a thing could happen.

[pyan]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

The rise of movie, music, and literary piracy. To my mind, this is the equivalent of a global wave of shoplifting. And few people think that it's wrong. They have such a sense of entitlement, they believe they have a right to all of these things free, no matter whose rights are trampled in the process.

Music piracy..I asked some younger colleagues about this at work.. the general consensus was that (1) everyone does it, (2) the only people hurt were the rip-off studios, and (3) You look at the artistes, their lifestyles on programmes like Cribs, and they're not hurting....

[Teresa Edgerton]

That's why I used the shoplifting analogy. People who go into expensive department stores and shoplift use very similar excuses to justify their actions.

[dustinzgirl]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

As some of you know, I'm not one to get agitated about articles I read in the paper, since so many of them leave out important facts just to sensationalize a rather ho-hum issue and attract readers.

But this article, which I read in this morning's paper, did get a strong reaction out of me. Perhaps it was because the article played into some of my own pre-existing concerns and issues -- although I have to say that the situations described are much worse than anything I could have imagined could happen.


It's time to deal with students who cheat

Ok, so the subject is just kids cheating in school. So what's the big deal? This sort of thing has been going on forever.

What upsets me is the role that parents and administrators -- no doubt under pressure from parents -- are playing in all of this. It's the punitive measures taken against teachers who catch the cheaters. What kind of ethics and morality are these parents teaching their children? It may start with cheating on exams or school papers, but what kind of business or political ethics will these children go on to form given this example by their parents: Win at all costs, and crush anyone who gets in your way.

In another few years, children like these will be adults, helping to run this country. Right at this instant, parents like these are running businesses, holding public offices, working in medicine and other vital fields -- at the very least voting in elections, and helping to choose our government.

Does anyone else find this as appalling as I do?

I would find myself extremely lucky if the only thing my kids ever did wrong is cheat through their education I would find myself a very lucky parent.

That doesn't mean I encourage cheating and if a blessed teacher catches my kid cheating you can be the teacher would get an apple and my kid's butt would be apple red.

So, in short, I'm with you T.

[littlemissattitude]

I used to work as a tutor at a community college here in California, and I have to say that while I have always known that cheating goes on in schools, I was astonished at the lengths students will go to cheat and at the ingenuity that they put into it...as well as how open it was and how few of the students who did cheat felt guilty about it. If they would have put as much thought and effort into studying as they did in avoiding it and cheating instead, most of them would have been honor roll students.