OCTOBER 28, 2015
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“I would say its effectiveness is pretty low,” Shipley said. “Somebody’s going to get a grade that they don’t deserve, but most of them will screw it up and not cheat correctly or they’re not going to learn anything and that will become apparent down the road.” Not every teacher sees using outside resources or sharing programs as “cheating”. Math teacher Susan Wildstrom recommends students program formulas into their calculators for tests. She even lets students share programs. “If you teach math at a deeper level of understanding, then the formulas are the least of what we’re asking,” she said. “Yeah, maybe I’m letting kids ‘cheat’.”
Perhaps more than anything else, students share their work: 88 percent of juniors admitted to cheating on homework. “One of the things that Whitman students have generally done the most over the years is students copying each other’s homework, which is a real hard thing to control,” Goodwin said.
er himself that he realized the seriousness of what they had done. “I started creating these bonds with students and really cared about them,” James said. “I realized what a profound betrayal it was to cheat like that. I absolutely regret doing that.”
Why Whitman Cheats
Leaving the classroom, you feel guilty. But it was your only option—the pressure was too much. As you You walk into the room and sit down. With shaky try to push your guilt out of your mind, your teacher hands, you casually take out your cheat sheet and hide notices the crumpled piece of paper on the ground. Teachers worry about academic integrity, it under your feet. Your teacher wouldn’t have done this but they also fear students think cheating is when he was your age, right? One teacher said he helped a classmate by okay. Twenty-three percent of students think giving his responses to an English prompt to a cheating is acceptable. “The one drawback of Whitman is that How Whitman Cheats friend, who copied them verbatim. They were kids are overly accepting of cheating,” science The night before the final, you text everyone in your both caught, but he wasn’t punished. class and post in the class Facebook group, but everyone is Another teacher wasn’t so lucky. After bring- teacher Kelly Garton said. Even if a majority of students say they don’t as panicked as you. After hours of studying, you resort to ing a note sheet to her AP European History grabbing a clean sheet of paper and a number two pencil. exam, she was caught and got a zero. Luckily, consider cheating acceptable, most still cheat. Students say test material doesn’t always You get to work on your cheat sheet. her father, who was a teacher at the school, never correspond with what is taught in class. Meanwhile, your teacher is designing eight forms of the found out. One junior said she cheated because she betest and hoping that’s enough. “I was so embarrassed that I never did it lieved an assessment didn’t fairly test underTeachers try to limit cheating, but that hasn’t again,” she said. stopped students. Some go “old-fashioned,” usEnglish teacher Omari James recounted an standing of a particular unit. “I didn’t feel guilty because my ability to ing cheat sheets with formulas or simply peek- experience when he and his classmates lied to a ing at other students’ tests. However, technol- substitute, saying they could work together on memorize formulas has no reflection on how ogy is the main catalyst of cheating’s evolution. an assessment. When the teacher came in the well I mastered the concepts and is an unfair Whether it’s as minor as telling friends over text next day, she was mortified by what they had expectation,” she said. Not having enough study time is another what’s on a quiz or as extreme as taking pictures done and began sobbing during a lesson. common complaint. of a test and sending it around, cyber communiJames has vivid memories of the teacher claim“Teachers often don’t realize how much cation fosters forums for cheating. ing she couldn’t trust the students anymore. other work we have to do or the extracurricuStill, one of the most popular strategies is “I couldn’t understand why she was so upset lars we have,” she said. skipping class the day of a test and taking it later for years,” he said. A senior said she to gain study time or learn the content, Goodwin It was only until he became a teachbegan cheating more said. in her junior year because she felt as t u o ab s se as cl if she couldn’t h lis g . 19 in 10 En ct O ll o p a balance rigored ct u d hite con
How their Teachers Cheated: Back in the Day
The Black & W the results: cheating. Here are
okay 5% think cheating is 2 s st te School-wide results on t ea ework - 69% ch rmation beforehand fo in t ou d fin % - 78% cheat on hom 0 3 in the last two weeks - 39% have cheated eeks ted in the last two w ea ch % 2 3 s Senior results st te on ework - 56% cheat - 81% cheat on hom eeks ted in the last two w ea ch % 5 6 s Junior results st te on ework - 66% cheat - 88% cheat on hom o weeks
st tw 6% cheated in the la 2 s Sophomore results st te on t ea ch ework - 21% - 64% cheat on hom
o weeks
ted in the last tw ea ch % 0 3 s Freshamn results st te on ework - 56% cheat - 69% cheat on hom