Why Cheating Is Wrong

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In the United States, one study has shown that 20% of students started cheating in the first grade. Similarly, other studies reveal that currently in the U.S., 56% of middle school students and 70% of high school students have cheated. Also, the storing of information in graphing calculators, pagers, cell phones, and other electronic devices has cropped up since the information revolution began. They don’t even think it’s wrong. Students cheat because of the pressure to succeed. We need to teach it in the same way we teach them about drugs or smoking or stranger danger. Teachers must teach students what constitutes academic dishonesty and be more vigilant about catching cheaters. Parents need to teach their children from a very early age that cheating is wrong. Many elaborate methods of cheating have been developed over the years. Methods of secretly signaling the right answer to friends are quite varied, ranging from coded sneezes or pencil tapping to high-pitched noises beyond the hearing range of most teachers. They cheat because they are bored. where a tap of the foot could correspond to answer "A", two taps for answer "B", and …show more content…

It will most definitely take the efforts, not only of the students themselves, but also of every adult who cares about kids to shake loose that hold.

Certainly teachers, parents, and the educational system all bear some of the blame for the cheating mentality that has taken hold of our kids. We have to hold them to a higher standard of academic integrity.

A large-scale study in Germany found that 75% of the university students admitted that they conducted at least one of seven types of academic misconduct (such as plagiarism or falsifying data) within the previous six months. And our educational system must stop treating kids like sources of data to be mined and instead instill in them a passion for learning, for true

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