Lie, Cheat, Steal: High School ethics surveyed

Nick017
Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:54:29 +0000

I see what you guys are saying and of course I have a problem with cheating; I just think that everyone has a problem with cheating, and that doesnt stop anyone. People who dont cheat, like me, dont because the chance of getting caught outweighs the, maybe, 1 or 2 points I would gain by it.

(And sorry, I didnt read most of your posts, so looking back on it, I may have been a bit rash)

What has become of the world? It’s always been this way; my grandparents accounts of growing up in school were just as bad.

I’m taking issue with the method that is being used to combat cheating. Basically, what schools and people here are doing is being that guy who comes into a school of apathetic teens and preaches abstinence as the only answer because it is ‘right’. Obviously that doesnt work - same thing when people come in and tell a bunch of people that cheating is ‘wrong’. No one listens and people nod their heads and keep on doing what they were doing. “Drugs are bad, cheating is bad, premarital sex is… bad, mkay,” said the ineffective, holierthanthou whoever. That isn’t going to help the problem - which you might think is a huge problem, and I think is a minor one, either way.

People respond to fear and reward. The fear of being caught needs to be greater than the reward. The first step is to recognize that the only way to get someone to not take a shortcut on their “quest for gold” is to PROVE that there is a greater risk of being slammed down their ladder to whatever. Schools have got to prove that they CAN and WILL totally annihilate cheaters. Just slaughter cheaters - after a few years, the fear>thepotentialreward. And far less people will cheat.