Greeting the Cheeting

Honors English, known to be one of the hardest classes of freshman year, filled with countless vocab words and essays, it would be enough to make any freshman crush, or maybe… even cheat. Shannon Ervay, a student that is avidly opposed to cheating, share stories about the cheaters of Mr. Durfee’s English class.
Picture the scene...

It the middle of an online homework assignment a student needs help or is confused, and Mr. Durfee runs to the rescue and drags said child into the hallway to help with any and all English needs. But then, as soon as that great door closes, some of the other children who held their confusion turn to their partners and quickly copy the answers off of their computer. Or, if they are across the room, phones start to appear, asking what number three is, or if number six is true or false. Ervay, a student who is opposed to cheating, also attends this honors English class and says that she has seen children in the act of this many many times.

Ervay, who identifies these people to be cheaters, shares that she is “proudly and boldly against cheating.”

"It just is not fair to the children trying their best, and studying, and actually working at something to get the same grade as someone who put absolutely no effort into trying to succeed, yet did because they `cheated," she said.
According to the Seneca times academic dishonesty %53 percent of students have cheated before, but then %74 believe that cheating is wrong, so while yes, people like Ervay who have never cheated before are more rare people who, like her, believe that cheating is wrong are more common than not.
Imagine if you had a big game, or you were going to the movies or to a friend's house, but you had a very, very big test the next day. You are probably not going to stay up all night studying. You may take a glance at your notes, or read a sentence of your book, but the chances are that you will most likely go out and have fun, and when you get back, take another quick glance at your notes and go to bed.

Garrett Vanostrand, an eighth grader, is that kid.

He said that he has cheated before. He said that when he cheats he usually just copies some notes, or gives away his own answer.

“ I remember this one time in the middle of a very hard test, I didn’t know the answers to some of the multiple choice questions, so I looked off of my neighbors paper, in the end I got a %95 so I feel it was worth it”

Shannon said that when a student cheats, he or she is getting less out of their education and 8th grade social studies teacher Mr. Connelly agreed.
Mr. Connelly said that any student who cheats does so because they are lazy, want they easy way out, and don’t believe in themselves or what they can accomplish on their own.

“When a student cheats, he or she is getting less out of the overall educational experience and all practically just because they are lazy” said Connelly. However, Superintendent Greg Kelehan said that students cheat because they feel peer pressure, or are pressured by their parents to succeed. “I feel that if we came together as a community and focused more on how a child grows and gains knowledge rather than pressuring them about their grade, they might now feel such a need to cheat” he said.

However, Garrett, the cheater, said that he doesn’t feel like he is losing any opportunities when he cheats, but in fact is getting something out of it. That something he claims is passing.

Garrett is not the only one with this opinion on academic dishonesty.

According to a recent survey on academic dishonesty distributed by The Seneca Times nearly 60% percent of students in our school cheat. A full 53% say they have cheated and not gotten caught.

But why? Mr. Connelly said it is because it is in a teen’s nature to cheat.
“It's what teenagers do," he said.

But do students view cheating the same?

Garrett said because it's an easy and simple way to pass... why wouldn’t a student want to cheat?

IN the comments collected, the main reason that people said that they wouldn’t want to cheat was because they” just felt that it was wrong.”

In that same survey, 75% of students said that cheating is wrong.There are two suspicious things about this survey.Eighty-four students reported that cheating was not wrong.
Almost 60% of students said that they had cheated before. Yet, nearly 75% said that cheating is wrong.
That shows that 20% of students in our high school who admit that cheating is wrong have cheated in the past. That means that not only are they doing something that could get them in trouble, but also doing something that they believe is morally wrong.

So, maybe if we take Mr. Kelehans word, and learn to grow and expand on our knowledge rather than focusing and pressuring on grades, students may feel more confident, and feel less of a need to cheat.