Opinion
Editorial: Cheating becoming a necessity
kira herron illustration
Ever since elementary school, schools have tried to put an emphasis on students doing their own work. In a lot of cases, copying from another student could earn a failing grade if caught, and colleges once had a strict policy to expel any student caught plagiarizing. But in today’s society, a lot of those opinions have begun to change.
While cheating is still widely frowned upon throughout schools, the stigma attached to it seems to have disappeared in a great number of students. Students are pressured by their parents and teachers to get good grades and at one point some decide to do just that, just not in the way anyone else hoped.
According to www.classroom-issues.com, as of 2007, 75 percent of students in a study admitted to cheating on a test in the last year while another 90 percent admitted to copying on a paper.
Cheating is also common because it’s become easier and easier to do over the years. There are entire websites where students can download papers on virtually any subject for a nominal fee, or even higher other students over the internet to write and send a paper for them. Since the introduction of the internet, a seemingly endless supply of information is just seconds away for many students and it makes cheating all the easier.
Apart from the pain of pressure from their teachers, family and peers, some students also do so just to get the assignment done more quickly. Many schools enforce a policy against allowing students with low grades to participate in sports. That in mind, trying to juggle sports and school work feels like an impossible task for some athletes, and to stay in the game, some feel like there’s no where else to turn but breaking a few rules.
Of course parts of the world itself have turned to cheating and it only proves for the better in many situations. In the business and work world, cheating past a few things and not getting caught is the way to actually get yourself ahead.
Still some students manage to retain their idea of honor and hard work. Many students choose not to cheat, weather through fear of getting caught or a pride for what they do, plenty of students still remain studying and genuinely trying to do the best work they can. Even if it isn’t perfect, it’s still theirs.
We do live in a world where it’s becoming difficult to keep up with everything that’s changing and all too easy to fall behind. But if students can’t retain some integrity and originality in their work, then all they managed to learn in school is how to slip past the hardest of work while picking up the credit for something someone else made.
If the world was full of cheaters, the people who work hard and deserve to be recognized will become little more than faces in the crowd. Without some decency and honor in school work, students won’t know how to properly function once the time comes to do something on their own or just go down with the ship.
Cheating is still constantly on the rise, and it doesn’t particularly look like it’s ending any time soon. Still, it can be hoped a stigma and hesitation can inevitably be returned and the ideas of honesty and hard work preserved.
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