Cheating is the New Teaching
Written by Elaine Wilson, Posted on , in Section Embracing Our Uniqueness
“We are told that cheating is wrong because we are attempting to earn a grade that we do not deserve,” a student wrote. “A grade earned by cheating is not a grade reflective of our true achievement. But my contention uses identical reasoning. I cheated because the grade I would have otherwise been given was not reflective of my true learning.”
This letter, written to teacher Jessica Lahey and featured in her article, I Cheated All Throughout Highschool (theatlantic.com) describes one student’s justification for cheating in a way that earned him scholarships, awards, and even acceptance into an honors program at a university. His cheating, in collaboration with several others, enabled him to receive many positions that would have otherwise been denied him.
The student claims to have been teaching himself the subjects and merely cheating to pass the teacher’s seemingly absurd assignments. He insists that he would have not learned anything useful had he not taken matters into his own hands.
Self-Justification? Or a reflection of the state of "poor teaching"?
Such justification from a student who considers himself his own personal teacher begs the question: Are students vindicated in cheating when they feel their education is severely lacking?
I’m going to give the absolute expression of NO. Cheating is cheating. If a student feels their education is being shortchanged, it should definitely be a concern that is brought before many—the teachers themselves, parents, a principal, and even the school board.
No student, ever, should consider themselves qualified to completely take over their own education. In addition, if they are cheating in high school and use it to get accepted into a prestigious school—where does the cheating stop? What happens the next time they decide that their teacher—this time, a college professor—is not instructing them adequately and they cheat on that homework or test? In this case, if they are caught cheating (as often happens in a university) they can be dismissed from school entirely, losing scholarships, opportunities, any work done for the class, and—of course—credibility.
As a University Instructor myself, I know that if a student was dishonest in their work I would feel—well, cheated. When I stand in front of a classroom full of students, I hope to leave them with a better sense of the subject that I am teaching, if not a better sense of life in general. If a student cheats on any assignment I give them, they have completely disregarded the learning I have offered, and taken on another’s thoughts as their own. This not only deprives them of learning, it deprives me of teaching, and even may deprive another person of truly owning their own work, when it is being reproduced for someone else.
Simply put, cheating is not learning. There is no justification for pretending to be the amazing student you are not, or for blaming a teacher for your need to be dishonest. Surely, if one feels they need a better learning experience, they are entitled to ask for such a thing. But one is never entitled to accolades that they did not earn. Not even in high school.
