Source Cited: Glazer, Sarah. "Plagiarism and Cheating." CQ Researcher 4 Jan. 2013: 1-28. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
For my second journal entry, I decided to read Plagiarism and Cheating, which discusses the way cheating is perceived in the classroom as well as outside of it, by students, teachers, and administrators. To some, such as Dennis Clark Pope, co-founder of Challenge Success, believe that cheating occurs because the classroom is designed to accommodate it. To combat this issue, Pope helped to create Challenge Success, which emphasizes "learning for learning's sake." Pope founded this program after research showing "cheating decreases when teachers stress learning the material instead of 'teaching to the test'." Others, such as David Callahan, founder of the liberal think tank called Demos, believe that students know cheating is morally wrong, but still choose to do it because "one third of high school students say lying and cheating is necessary to get ahead in life." This also applies to teachers. After the No Child Left Behind law was enacted, pressure to produce high-scoring students increased. According to the article, "high scores mean more federal money for public schools and bonuses for teachers and principals, so school administrators and teachers feel intense pressure for students to perform well on tests. Some appear to be cutting corners to accomplish that," referring to scandals in which teachers changed students' answers on standardized tests in order to increase funding. There is also a large debate about whether schools should have an "honor code" in place, such as Dartmouth, or have strict consequences with hearings conducted like a small courtroom, such as at Harvard. Some say having such strict rules about plagiarism can completely discourage students altogether from engaging in group discussions over the assigned readings or from reading different opinions on a topic such as movie reviews before writing a paper on the topic. Others believe that such strict policies are necessary because most students would not report their friend for cheating if their school uses the honor code system.
This article made some very good points that I had not previously considered. For example, I had not realized there were any scandals with teachers changing scores on standardized tests to get more funding, but there were actually multiple cases in which this took place. It also made me consider that maybe the reason students seem to be okay with committing plagiarism or cheating is that what they are learning in class doesn't seem important or relevant to them. In the article, students are said to have "overwhelmingly expressed anger at teachers and the school for giving them what they considered meaningless assignments that taught them nothing" in an editorial called Why We Cheat. This made me think: how can we expect students to take their assignments seriously when their own teachers don't? I don't think kids are blind to the fact that many of their teachers "teach for the test," and have not actually chosen the material they find important themselves. I believe standardized testing causes apathy in teachers as well, and causing them to allow things such as cheating to occur in the classroom. Professor Panagiotis Ipeirotis attempted to stop cheaters in his classroom, and by the end of the semester, many students had admitted to cheating. This "crusade" backfired on Ipeirotis, however; it led to the lowest student evaluation he ever received, as well as the smallest pay increase of the professor's career. Ipeirotis says the financial burden he had to bear for attempting to "do the right thing" is one of the reasons he will "never pursue cheating again." I think a major problem with standardized testing allowing students to cheat more easily is that it encourages teachers to look the other way, or be punished. This teaches students that they can cheat because there will not be consequences.
This article also relates to my first article about critical thinking because of the points it makes about apathy in the classroom as well as how the amount of emphasis put on standardized testing can be detrimental for students. For example, in Teaching Critical Thinking, it is mentioned that the curriculum is built by administrators and researchers, not the people who are actually in the classroom teaching the material. If teachers cannot choose to teach what they think is vital or interesting, why should we expect them to stress the importance of a topic when they don't see its importance themselves? This issue of apathy among teachers is also mentioned in Plagiarism and Cheating in Panagiotis Ipeirotis's situation. After suffering from the consequences of pursuing punishment for cheaters, Ipeirotis decided it is in his best interest to ignore cheating. This is very concerning because teachers like Ipeirotis that wish to stop cheating and plagiarism are being discouraged from doing the right thing, which I feel causes not only apathy about how the class operates but also resentment towards administrators, causing them to "rebel" by allowing the students to do things administrators would not approve of. Teaching Critical Thinking also discusses how the perceived importance of standardized tests can be harmful to students, as they are not actually learning to think critically but how to "cheat the system" by always looking for the single right answer. By using standardized tests that have such high stakes such as determining admission into college or school funding, creativity is lost as students' main concern is not learning the material but providing adequate scores. Plagiarism and Cheating addresses this concern as well, saying, cheating amongst high achieving students is more prevalent at selective schools like Stuyvesant in New York. "(Schools like Stuyvesant) tend to have more cheating than average because the stakes are higher." In 2005 a study showed that while most students admired ethics, they felt that because their peers were cheating to get ahead, they had to as well. The large amount of importance associated with standardized testing seems to make students feel like learning is not important, but that it is all about getting the best grade or the best score.
This article definitely led me to consider how standardized testing and cheating are related. When I first began looking for an article to use for my second journal, I was wanting to find an argument that contradicted my opinion to strengthen my argument. While I still think it is very important to do so, I felt that this article was too good to pass up. It has provided me with another perspective about why standardized testing is doing more harm than good: not only does it make it easier to cheat, but the expectations that come with standardized testing makes cheating seem like the best option. Students no longer care as much about learning for the sake of learning, and therefore don't care where the information comes from or how it is presented. This kind of mentality is not good for our society's future, as cheating, lying, and stealing might become habits that are hard to break and generally accepted in order to get ahead. I now believe standardized testing teaches students how to find loopholes in school rather than wisdom. Perhaps standardized testing is teaching critical thinking. But is it being used in the right manner? Maybe the cheating strategies students devise require critical thinking, but do we really want a society full of people who use their higher-level thinking to take advantage of others rather than to solve problems that require creative thinking? I think these are very important questions to consider, and I had not previously considered them before reading Plagiarism and Cheating.
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