Underpressure or over pressured 10 The push for perfect grades in high school seems reasonable. People need good grades to get into a good college. Then, people need to get into a good college to get a good job. Then, finally, people can be happy with all their money, about eight years worth of stress, a six-figure debt, and seasonal depression1. The cycle is cruel, but the children need to succeed. Students count the months, weeks, days and periods until the next weekend, or better yet a break. Teachers do the same, although they are sadly at the end of the schooling cycle. All of the smart students know the feeling of bitterness when the cheater kid next to them gets a higher score2. All the good students know the feeling of when a teacher …show more content…
Students that do work endlessly end up being discouraged by this. Students can get rid of the stress and still rack up the perfect grades by cheating. Cheaters are smarter than those who study. They never get caught anyway, unlike when a student who usually studies, resorts to cheating. Cheaters get all the glory without all the hours of stress and all the procrastination without the regrets afterwards. It is odd that Seniors striving for a 4.72 grade point average take their health class the last semester of school as to not disrupt and lower their GPA, when that class is probably the most beneficial to life and to controlling their stress. Sudents do not take classes for acquiring knowledge anymore, but soly for the purpose of being accepted into a college6. So much stress is also put on SAT scores. SAT’s are a useless judge of worth and not to mention only used in America. Anyone can fill in bubbles. A good SAT score cannot even guarantee acceptance to college. Club activities, varsity sports, rigorous classes, and five hundred hours of community service, perfect attendance, perfect citizenship, and weekly rescues of stray puppies are needed too7. This can be done
That stomach churning feeling of guilt for many seems to appear as a small price to pay when completing an act of academic dishonesty. Colleen Wenke wrote an essay on cheating eighteen years ago called “Too Much Pressure”. In the past fifty years, the number of students who admit to cheating has increased fifty to seventy percent(Gaffe). Many people wonder what leads the students to make this unjust decision. Today, the reason for a rise in cheaters is because of how easy it has become, leading many students to the false conclusion that they aren’t breaking any rules; It is simply viewed as a shortcut to success in the classroom and beyond.
Situations of cheating have seemed to become more and more commonplace when the student is bored by the subject material, poor teaching and or feels they have no use for the knowledge. Kohn even states in his article, “cheating is more common when students experience the academic tasks they’ve been given as boring, irrelevant, or overwhelming.” This infers that if a student were attending a school interested in learning about art, the student maybe more inclined to cheat in a business accounting class due to the fact the student would find the subject material irrelevant to them and their future. Students seem to be less inclined to cheat and it “is relatively rare in classrooms where the learning is genuinely engaging and meaningful to students and where a commitment to exploring significant ideas hasn’t been eclipsed by a single-minded emphasis on “rigor”” (Kohn). To simplify everything mentioned above; students are inclined to cheat in school when they are disinterested in the subject material and or are overwhelmed by in assignment or finally the result in a poor teacher. Everyone who has attended school can relate to this in some way or another, most people do not want to retain knowledge they have no interest in or use for in their
Getting into college requires students to make an assured grade on a standardized test called the American College Test. High school students begin in kindergarten preparing for tests; to make it to the next level you have to score a certain score. Pressure is forced upon many students when they begin sophomore year and begin to ponder the thoughts of college and life after high school. Once they have planned out their school, major, and work life after college, the school counselor plans a meeting to discuss the ACT. Students begin to be worried and anxious about grades and tests; all of these stressed students do not realize they have been passing test after test to score a good enough grade to get into college, where they will begin to take test after test to graduate college and even after college, these students will still be tested within their workforce.
Cheating is a big issue that has reached the most competitive campuses around the United States. It is increasing more and more with the new technology that we have in the 21st century because students have easy access to many sources of information. Cheating is something all students have done at some point in their lives, but as they reach a higher academic level, they are faced with more rigorous consequences that can affect their futures in many different ways. Cheating might be seen as an easy way to obtain a good grade, get into a good college, or maintain scholarships or financial aid, but the consequences could affect the life and the future of the student.
She stated,“students cheat because of academic pressure and the fear of failing a course”(3). Redding states students who are unprepared to take a test, often resort to cheating so they do not have to stress about dealing with the grade they are going to receive if they did not cheat. She also states students often feel the pressure of assignments that are time consuming and are due the next day for a huge chunk of points. She also explains the effects of the students negative behavior. Redding states “students who cheat in school expects they can cheat their way in life”(3).She explains students
A statement from the Huffington Post states, “From a very young age, we are told the importance of getting good grades. Especially in high school, we are told time and time again that our grades affect what college we will get into. While grades are extremely important, people often forget about the importance of learning, not just getting good grades. There is a difference between the grade received in a course and the amount of learning that took place in the course.” Parents and institutions should teach the importance of learning. The society around the upbringing of students emphasizes getting good grades as apposed to getting every detail and aspect mastered. School priorities should be reevaluated and changed for future students
Modern students face many pressures for academic success. They are often unwilling to disappoint their parents or spouses. Some fear that not cheating will weaken a student’s ability to compete with their peers. They rationalize their unethical behavior, unwilling to accept a poor grade, consequently justifying cheating as the only means to that end.
In today’s America, the educational system has been blaming teachers for the failure of students. This pressure put on teachers causes a lot of unneeded stress and can even be demoralizing. Instructors are always trying to put the student’s
They are unprepared for the difficulties they will have to face during their freshman year. One student credits his underachievement in college to missing lectures during secondary school. Earning high marks in high school with little effort allows some students to miss out on class lessons with no evident damage to their grades or performance.
Cheating on academic work is a serious issue that most students admit to doing at some point in their academic career. Elite students are surprisingly the culprits of cheating, but hide it well. (Romm, para 5) Cheating is such a large issue that “70% of students from a sample of 1,800 from nine campuses said they had cheated at least once during their college careers.” (Schneider, para 9) Students cheat on academic work because of different, ongoing pressures in their lives. Understanding the student’s motives and pressures are essential to preventing cheating from occurring in the future. Students cheat for different reasons specific to them regarding their priorities, pressures and because of how easy it has become. Even though eliminating cheating will not happen, there are actions that educational professionals can and should take to prevent most of it from happening so often. Therefor cheating problems are minimized and have a positive impact on the student’s education and understanding of concepts.
Misunderstanding, pressure, and laziness are not good reasons to cheat and the effect of the consequences are not worth it. You can end up with an F, in detention, written up, kicked out of school, and with marks on your permanent record. There is no way to justify cheating, no matter how hard people try to. No matter what happens, students will continue to cheat, it is inevitable.
Society has a misconceived notion that the cheaters are only the slackers or the students struggling to pass, but in reality, the high-achieving students are the ones who cheat as well (Jaffe). This just shows that cheating isn’t limited to a certain type of student; people cheat for a variety of reasons. But instead of punishing them harshly for the act, educators and parents should be trying to understand why the student had cheated, and what they can do to help them be successful without resorting to cheating. Take, for instance, the case of Chris Loschiavo, a dean who once encountered a student who cheated “as a cry for help” (Loschiavo). This student had been caught cheating multiple times, even after he had admitted to and accepted the consequences, this student had been continually cheating in the same class (Loschiavo).
The school experience for every student is different. A difference in teachers, classmates, and curriculum. All factors contribute to the shaping of a student. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” Education is about learning and expanding a student’s knowledge and creating character, but in the more recent generations the goal has changed directions. Schooling for youth has become more about snatching the highest grade from other students than focusing on achieving the greatest understanding of the topics. A traditional grading system has resulted in this. A new up-and-coming system being implemented is the pass/ fail grading system. This system is taking place in several medical schools like the University of Virginia and Columbia. The new change has benefitted the education of students and unlike the opinion of some educators, it assists the students by giving them a chance to learn the curriculum more than traditional grading.
We all want to reach success in our life, but some are willing to cheat just to get there. This plague of dishonesty has spread to many students across the country which is why cheating is worse now than it was when our parents were in school. Deceiving teachers on tests and projects has become much more popular for our generation because there are so many ways to cheat, it becomes an addiction, and we have different virtues than our parents did when they were growing up. Firstly, cheating is worse now because there are much more ways to do it than when our parents were our age. Our parents didn’t have all the different cheating methods and tutorials that students are victims to in today’s society.
Are the new standards and expectations the world has for teenagers really creating monsters? The amount of stress that is put on students these days between trying to balance school, homework, extra curricular activities, social lives, sleep and a healthy lifestyle is being considered a health epidemic (Palmer, 2005). Students are obsessing over getting the grades that are expected of them to please those that push them, and in return, lose sleep and give up other aspects of their lives that are important to them, such as time with friends and family, as well as activities that they enjoy. The stress that they endure from the pressures of parents, teachers, colleges, and peers has many physical as well as mental effects on every student, some more harmful than others. The extreme pressure on students to get perfect grades so that they will be accepted into a college has diminished the concept of actually learning and has left the art of “financing the system” in order to succeed in its place (Palmer, 2005).