I got caught cheating. What should I do?

cptofthehouse
Tue, 06 May 2008 22:59:40 +0000

I think that someone like a teacher has the responsibility to keep his grade book and other materials away from prying eyes. Most teachers do this routinely, and consider a mistake when they leave the materials open like that to a student. We consider it a mistake to leave our purses unattended. I don’t think anyone is going to take your side on that one. It is not comparable to your example. However, there are rape victims that do make everyone shake their heads at the foolishness of the situations they put themselves in. It also makes it much more difficult to get a conviction of the rapist. There are ways to behave to make it less likely that you become a victim. It’s painful when you are a victim of a crime or a breach of trust, so it does behoove you to take some precautions.

I am not diminishing the blame on the culprits in each case. It is absolutely wrong to steal, rape, snoop. That the item was there to take, the grade to change is no defense at all. I think it is common sense on the part of all of us to be careful of certain things. In the case of the teacher, there is also her responsibility to other students privacy, and the security of their grades. It is not implausible that other kids’ grades could have been lowered and she may not have noticed. She has a responsibility to guard those records because it is not just herself affected and it is her job to safeguard those things. The same with a bank employee or cashier with money. I daresay they could lose their job if they left the money unattended and it disappeared. I don’t think the victim analogy would hold any water there.