Even Smart Kids Cheat

I knew someone in high school that would take a $.19 Bic pen, remove the blue or black plastic plug at the end, and insert a small piece of paper as a cheat sheet. To my knowledge they never got caught. They also received really good grades.

And period seven was the beneficiary of being the last class of five tested by Mr. Santemeyer. Mr. Santemeyer, the American history teacher at my high school, issued all his classes the same multiple choice exam. By the last section of the day all the answers had been smuggled out. He must have thought period seven was intellectually gifted. 

    

Sister Julia, as well as Ms. Sterzenback had students switch papers with each other to correct quizzes. No one ever received a poor grade.

When the proctor of my Algebra regents put everyone on their honor so she could make a quick trip down to the office, all hell broke loose in the classroom in her absence. There was no honor. The only code respected was the code of silence---say nothing and reap your reward.

No one thought well-behaved privately schooled Catholic girls from good families would ever cheat. But they did—and without remorse. If teachers were foolish enough to leave chinks in the armor, resourceful students were going to find them.

In college, cheating took on a whole new level—particularly with the super bright slacker engineering students. They knew how to program calculators that were not quite yet designed to be programmable. It was the cusp of the computer age. Technology was an added method to the tried and true answers and formulas written on sleeve-covered arms.

When my one of my daughters was in high school there was a cheating scandal. AP students had texted    answers to other AP students---a fee was involved.  And the whole allowance of cell phones in classrooms debate got resurrected again. People thought that cell phones bore the onus of the cheating. People thought that if cell phones were forbidden, cheating would cease.

I shook my head. I knew better. It’s not the arrow—it’s the Indian.

It is my genuine belief that there is no more cheating in this generation than there was with mine---the tools are just different. If you do not want students to cheat then you must fingerprint them before each exam and have them sit naked in a one-person furniture-less wireless lead-lined classroom painted white with a single issued pencil. And even in that scenario I am certain some students will find the chink.

Because even smart kids cheat—and in my experience they are the ones most skilled at it---and they rarely get caught.