"To me, the idea of trying to track down custom papers and identify cheaters, that's not as productive as understanding why 200 people, one third of an entire lecture hall," he said, "would choose to cheat."
This quote comes from a recent article on ABCNews.com, "Confessions of a Ghostwriter: Man's Career Thrives Helping Students Cheat," which was prompted by that same man's anonymous "confession" in the Chronicle of Higher Education on November 12. (And really, how can something be a confession when the individual does not acknowledge any wrongdoing and won't even reveal his true identity? Sounds like he's running scared, regardless of his bravado and clammy rhetoric.)
Being in the throes of grading final papers and fielding emails from confused students who don't "understand" why they got something lower than expected on a particular project, I read and watched this ABC News report and was particularly interested in this man's final comment. (Why are we listening to someone who spouts anonymously again? Oh yes. We live in the world of zero accountability - neither required nor expected, so even our "experts" can hide behind the wizard's curtain.)
This ghostwriter of thousands of students' "original" works for hundreds of different types of classes at hundreds of different universities and colleges around America thinks that we, as faculty members and academics, should be less concerned with catching the cheaters and more concerned with why students cheat in the first place. This is actually a point upon which I must begrudgingly agree. Why DO students cheat?
Take a famous student athlete, for instance, who is accused, nay convicted, of cheating in an academic context. What is the consequence of this cheating? Well, the ostensible consequence to that student athlete is an F on his or her transcript, perhaps with a notation that the F was due to cheating (or very often, there is no such notation). Does he lose his scholarship, thus providing a tangible, concrete consequence? No. Is she benched for the season? No. Do all of the other students on campus who find out about said cheating lose faith in said student's athletic abilities? No. In other words, does ANYBODY care, in the end, that a particular student cheated and got caught on an assignment? No. Save for the individual professor who caught said student. And maybe the honesty committee members who slap the student's hand.
Just using this simple example, an example that I guarantee plays out every single semester at every single university and college in this nation, one can see that one potential reason that students cheat (or are sorely tempted to do so) is because there are no tangible, lasting consequences and nobody in authority over their educations and futures really cares (beyond endlessly bitching about it, which I've also been known to do.)
Consider another circumstance, one that is touched upon in the ABC News report. When a professor receives a paper that is clearly NOT in the student's voice or written with the student's actual proficiency level with language, that professor KNOWS it is not that student's work. But she uses Turnitin.com and Google to check for plagiarism and finds nothing. This merely leads to frustration, as she must then grade the paper on its merits and GIVE the student whatever grade that paper earned. Students who cheat know this. And that's also why they do it - they know that the chances of getting caught are incredibly slim (if they pay enough) and their prof will HAVE to grade the work because there is no evidence of plagiarism. This could be why some schools require all major essays be written IN class by hand. No cheating possible there, but hell to grade handwritten, scrabbly texts.
So far, the reasons I've been able to come up with for why students cheat include nobody in authority actually caring enough to punish cheating in a real, tangible way (throw Jimmy out of school? Heresy! Who would pay the bills, then?) and simply being able to get away with it. Those seem pretty reasonable to me. But how about that moral code that half the nation keeps bandying about as though it were so important? Ah yes, morality. That great divider of peoples between the right and wrong, the sinners and the saints. Where are these students' moral compasses, if at least half of them believe that they possess one?
Far from laying blame beyond the student, I would like to suggest that this much-touted moral code is nonexistent in our current mindset and social world. Morality or a sense of right and wrong no longer guides us in our decisions on a daily basis. What is easiest has replaced what is right. What is most convenient has replaced what is most satisfying. And what is fastest has replaced what will have the longest term benefit. We, the people, as a collective, are the reason students cheat with abandon.
Other thoughts and opinions are most welcome because I'm not sure what the answer is, but the problem is incredibly frustrating.
6 comments:
Personally, I wish very much that breaking academic honesty codes would guarantee a revocation in a students' right to call upon FERPA. Those who wrong others (by stealing ideas from them, for instance) or who willingly wrong themselves (by paying for the right to steal someone else's ideas) do not deserve the right to privacy. That student's name should be on a list. And not just a private list shuttled back and forth between future potential professors of these cheating students. No, no. A public list. A newspaper. Or an online source. Or something of the like.
But, see, I hold this belief because I hold immense scorn and disdain for these horribly immoral people.
You're right, though. Nobody cares about academic failures, particularly in the case of "famous" student athletes. My father actually uttered the words, "What one of those guys does in the classroom shouldn't have any bearing on their eligibility to play the game." Really, Dad? Really? They are student athletes. Most of them are on scholarships because otherwise they would not be able to afford to attend (and therefore play for) the university they insist on cheating. To my understanding, a good number of students on academic scholarships (NOT to be confused with the apparent zero-consequences, free-money athletic scholarships) who are found to be in violation of academic honesty codes do stand to lose their scholarships. F's tend to kill the GPA, which tends to kill scholarships.
Not so for the athletes. Lucky ducks. Good thing they have us professors to help hold their hands and do things for them. Right? (Excuse me while I find a suitable metal desk on which to bang my head until I forget about this nonsense.)
(Oh, and while I'm thinking about revoking people's anonymity, that "ghostwriter" should not only lose his anonymity but he should be held LEGALLY accountable for what he's doing. Grrrrrr.)
Hello Amanda (actually, Amandas)! This is Cristine. I'll bite! I think there's no real one reason why kids cheat; I am sure that even if we eradicated all the reasons we've already identified, kids would still cheat because kids get into trouble. That may sound like an oversimplification, but I do often feel like we try to systematize too many things in life; sometimes things just aren't perfect, and our attempts to come up with a reason for bad behavior often take our energies away from other more useful actions--like, for example, finding instructional models that make cheating less possible or (seemingly) necessary.
But I think the overriding issue is that students see college as a means to an end, and I honestly think that's our fault as a society-- we have trained them to think that way. College is not an end of itself for most students, it has no inherent value. It is merely something they've been told they need to do in order to get a job, move out of their parent's house, etc. And individual courses have even less value-- if they are not English majors, why should they care about writing a paper? Of course that isn't the right way to think, but that's what happens when you push an unmotivated student to go to college. We have promoted the value of attending college so much that it has essentially become rote. An English paper is nothing but a hoop to students.
It is amazing how little we really have to call upon the specific skills we learned in school once we are in the working world. Of course general intelligence is valuable, as well as endurance, and being able to work to a deadline is important. But one could have dug ditches for four years and learned all that! The university style is rigid, but in the working world, deadlines are variable (both ways-- you can usually beg out of a project, but you are also often asked to get things done weeks before the stated deadline, on sudden notice) and almost all work is collaborative. Tests don't happen. Tasks are diffuse, not focused on one particular subject. Students can't see how the traditional structure of the college course is going to make them a better employee, probably because they're smart enough to know that it won't. Emboldened by this knowledge, students simply don't care about treating the college experience with kid gloves. Most of them just want to get it over with. They feel that their skills are not in writing, or in schoolwork, but in some other area that college doesn't value. But in order to get there, they have to jump through the college hoop first. Of course, none of this answers your point that kids are morally bankrupt. That's a given. But some generally-not-morally-bankrupt kids can probably rationalize that it is better to cheat on a paper, make the A, get the summa cume laude, then get the job, than it is to suffer at a job they hate and be miserable for the rest of their lives. Of course most students lack the wisdom and foresight necessary to realize that a bad grade on a paper is not going to ruin their life in the long run, so they take the easy out.
Thoughtful post that raises excellent questions that deserve a wider forum of discussion.
From my limited experience, I've already encountered professors who assume as ALL students are cheating, the matter is irrelevant and unstoppable and others who make academic honesty the awkward, clunky centerpiece of their class. Neither approach seems rational; I think a caring instructor, using commmon sense, the technology available to them, and a high level of engagement with the students can detect all but the most "expert" cases of academic dishonesty. And frankly, in that case, we're not paid nor qulaiifed to be "CSI: Plagiarism." If they are dedicating all their time and energy to "professional" cheating, we can at least take comfort in the fact that they likely have neither the time or emergy to learn ANY of the material and will have obtained an A and no accompanying knowledge. I take that as their failure that will be to their future deteriment, NOT mine.
As to why students cheat? Some don't trust their abilitieas. Some feel they have to because it's "cool." Some feel if they don't cheat, they're not trying hard enough (What?! Just "write my paper" no way! I'm a lousy writer!)and some want to just get the thrill of something for nothing. But again, that "something" really is "nothing" and if they are too dumb to see that, then I believe their burden of arrogant ignorance is punishment enough.
GREAT post.
Great comments, all! I think Cristine makes an important point about umotivated students being pushed to go to college. Of course there's going to be no inherent value in a situation that's forced down someone's throat or presented as merely a means to an end.
I think you, A.Mo, hit on another important point: "What is easiest has replaced what is right. What is most convenient has replaced what is most satisfying. And what is fastest has replaced what will have the longest term benefit." We see this, as you said, in daily decisions, from cheating to illegally downloading music and movies. Really, what can we do? I'm drawing a blank.
Great post with good questions we must ask ourselves as teachers. It's sad how rampant this problem is among our students...
I love the ending to this Post.We, The People.... I don't know if that was intentional or not, but good work. I am a college student, and I do not know first hand what you are talking about, but I do know that the thought of such plagerizism has crossed my mind as has it every other student on the planet, but having high held morals, and self worth, I do not partake in such activities. Although, I can help with the thoughts behind the ideas that provoke such measures, "I have 5 classes all having homework due monday, and I have placed school out of my mind for the small two days I have and now have too much work todo before midnight." Naturally, papers, projects and any extended assignments make the bottom of the list of things college students work on, until inevitably it can no longer be ignored. but had we not had assignments 5 nights out of 5, we could have possibly devoted one to this paper or project.
Some students could be faced with making money or spending some on a paper... I don't know really, again these are plausible thoughts that could and should be thought about when thinking about the "why?"
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