Essay Cheat

Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) September 18, 2007 Tuesday Reaching for success, no matter what; Students' cheating skills improve with technology (however, 'old methods' are still in use) Watchdogs Ease of it Plagiarism the norm? Chelsea Shover, Linda Espenshade, Intelligencer Journal Staff A; Pg. 6 1340 words DATELINE: Lancaster, PA Jon wasn't prepared for a geography test in his Spanish class, so he had to come up with a plan - fast. Did he quickly review the material? Not quite. "I drew a map of South America on my ankle," said Jon, a 2006 Donegal High School graduate, who asked that his last name not be used. Throughout the test he peeked at his drawing (which also included Central America) and did well. Jon's no loner when it comes to cheating to get the grade. According to local teens and the results of national surveys, cheating seems to be as normal in high school as borrowing lunch money and forgetting your gym clothes. Many of the 25-plus high school students we interviewed at random, admitted cheating. All said they've seen classmates cheat. Their responses are consistent with those in the Josephson Institute of Ethics 2006 survey, monitored and verified by Pepperdine University. In the Josephson survey - based on 35,000 responses from high school students -60 percent of students surveyed said they cheated during a test within the past 12 months. Local school administrators acknowledge that students cheat, but cheating seldom comes to their attention until it becomes a pattern. Administrators say they aren't seeing a rise in cheating in the last five years, though they recognize that technology makes cheating easier than ever. Teachers use their discretion and school policy to decide how to handle it, said high school principals from McCaskey, Hempfield, Lampeter-Strasburg and Donegal high schools. It's a teacher's job to take away cell phones, watch for cheaters, check for plagiarism, and, in general, use good classroom management skills to make cheating difficult, administrators said. Students claim, however, that cheating is easy to get away with. "Mostly people write on their arms or pants," said Andrew Smith, a sophomore at Manheim Central. "We write with dark washable markers." Don't they get caught red (or blue or black or purple) handed? "No," Andrew said, "Our teachers don't notice." Some tricks are even less obvious. "You stretch a rubber band out and write answers...," said Jon, a junior at Manheim Township, who learned the trick from his brother. Then, during the test, he holds the rubber band under his desk unstretched until he wants a hint, at which point he stretches it out so the answers are readable again. Cheat sheets and copying homework are still standbys, but cell phones, calculators and iPods create new challenges for teachers and new opportunities for students. Tim, a senior at Hempfield, said people store notes for math and science classes in advanced calculators. Advanced calculators, such as the TI-89, have a text capability that allows a student to write answers for tests. Teens pointed out that students could, in theory, text each other answers on cell phones. However, many agreed that they did not see a lot of people cheating with cell phones, due in part to rules restricting use during school. For instance, principal Dwight Nolt of J.P. McCaskey High School explained that cell phones are supposed to be in their lockers during the school day. If teachers see a cell phone, it is confiscated. On the first offense, the parent has to pick up the phone. Second offense, the student has to wait until June to get it back. Nolt said he's had no reports of cheating using cell phones, and while that does not mean it is not occurring, he thinks it would be difficult to coordinate texting answers. An anonymous Lancaster Mennonite student claims that some kids record information on their iPods and then conceal the earbuds during class. He admits, however, that he prefers a technique far less complex: "Good old-fashioned look off their paper. Never fails." The Internet makes looking off someone else's paper too easy. Copying term papers from the Internet, or sections of them, can make the most difficult assignment of the semester little more than an exercise in improving cheating skills. Tim, a student in a small learning community at McCaskey High School, sees plagiarism firsthand in several forms. "If I have a good paper, kids will get jealous and erase my name and put theirs," he said. "When [teachers] say paraphrase, [students] just take a paragraph and copy and paste." Tim, from Hempfield, said, "I know people who have other people do term papers." Some schools are using technology to fight online cheating. Donegal High School has a computer program called Vericept that monitors activity on school computers. If a students tries to access sites known for cheating, their account is flagged and a building administrator and classroom teacher are notified. Since that program is only effective on school computers, not home computers, other schools, like Lancaster Mennonite, fight plagiarism through Turnitin.com, a Web site where students upload papers to be scanned for plagiarized material. Students can double-check their own papers on the Web site, said principal Miles Yoder, in essence learning what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. Teachers are often the best plagiarism sensors, several principals said, because they know students' writing styles. If a student turns in a paper that is written significantly different from normal, the teacher is more likely to search for evidence of plagiarism. Certainly harsh penalties for cheating should be a deterrent. At Lampeter Strasburg High School cheaters get a 0 for the assignment, in-school suspension, plus an after-school detention on a first offense of any kind. "We have pushed it (cheating) underground or made it difficult to do," said principal Carroll Staub. Offenses can earn up to three days of in-school suspension, but even the harshest rules don't eliminate it, he said. At Donegal High School, assistant principal Ed Frick said they work with individual students who cheat. "We spend a great deal of time figuring out why it is occurring" and "What is causing students to think it's OK to cheat?" Many students said they cheated out of convenience. "I kind of just cheat if I need to," said Adam, a Lancaster Catholic graduate, usually "because I didn't study." Henry Linder, a senior with all honors classes at McCaskey, described the prevalence of cheating as "a function of how competitive high school is to get into a good college." He added, "I think a lot of people turn to cheating to achieve goals because of societal pressures on getting into upper tier schools and getting competitive grades." Nate, a McCaskey student, admitted to cheating three times on vocabulary tests without guilt because he didn't have time to study. He draws the line regarding chronic cheating, or cheating on major tests and projects. "You won't know what you're doing in the future. You're going to mess up big time." According to the Josephson Institute Survey, many students believe just the opposite. Fifty-nine percent said they believe successful people do what they have to do to win, even if it includes cheating. Forty-two percent believe a person has to lie or cheat sometimes to be successful. So what's to stop a person from cheating if they don't think they'll get caught and they think they'll score higher by cheating? Principal Staub believes students at Lampeter-Strasburg benefit from a home and community environment that emphasizes honesty. "We live in a very religious community. Most kids belong to youth groups," Staub said. That doesn't make them saints, but parents are already instilling that value in their kids." Josephson's Executive Director Rick Jarc believes the answer lies in character education, teaching children to determine right from wrong by emphasizing positive characteristics of honesty, responsibility, citizenship, caring, fairness, respect. These are characteristics that have to be emphasized wherever that student goes - at home, in school, on the ball field, in the community and in the workplace. When students don't internalize those values, Jarc said, the future of the country is impacted. "These are our future leaders, politicians, businessmen, even presidents." E-mail: Lespenshade@Lnpnews.com September 18, 2007 ENGLISH GRAPHIC: illustration Dan Morris, Intelligencer Journal Newspaper Copyright 2007 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.