Carlos Andrés Muñiz
Mr. Moore
AP English Language and Composition
12 August 15
Cheating in the Academic Setting It seems like it was too long ago when kids actually realized the importance of learning. Although now a days it seems like every student isn’t interested in learning, he or she is interested in the reward that comes along with it. Being in the top ten percent of your class, being valedictorian, or getting accepted into the college of your dreams, that’s what passes off as important in school now. Sure, it kind of is, but if you don’t learn anything, then you’re cheating yourself and just wasting your time. The point of going to school isn’t to get good grades, or be the most popular kid, or be even be the smartest…we all go to school for nothing more than to learn. You can walk around just about any school, in any state, at just about any time of the day, and I’m willing to put money on the line that you will see a group of students sitting around a bench sharing last night’s homework. Students are so accustomed to cheating; they think it’s 100 percent normal. This bothers me so much because they’ve put so much effort into learning the best way to cheat over the years that you can’t help but smile and think “, If you would put half the effort you put into learning how to cheat, you might have honestly passed Mr. Moore’s English class.” Yet people don’t realize how bad it seriously is. In our present day society, kids are overwhelmed with the idea that material things matter, that the more material things you have the more successful you are. One of the biggest problems that leads to this common misconception is that there are many, many people that kids know that are successful, but don’t realize that they lied, cheated, and scammed others just to get there, especially in small communities such as ours. Think about it this way, if a child is to think that cheating is ok and harmless, what are they going to think when they grow into adulthood? Sure, they will say something like,” Oh I was just having a bad day, I cheated on one little test, it’s not like I’m going to do it again.” That’s the thing we all know that if you get away with it once you’re most likely to do it again or at least try to. There are so many things that need to be done about this epidemic, but the problem is no one wants to take the first step. Teachers are some of the busiest people in the world. They juggle the work of up to 150+ students at a time, dealing with a low paying job, being seriously underappreciated for their hard work, and not to mention the children they have to deal with on a daily basis. You would be surprised how often students are actually cheating and not a single teacher realizes it, where’s the proof you say? Simple, high school students who can’t read, they’ve obviously skipped a few grades, or have an amazing way to slide from grade to grade unnoticed. One of the most disappointing things about cheating is that it will continue on to college if it is not put to an end immediately. Think about it from a parent’s point of view…paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to send little Jimmy to get his medical degree, and what do you know he graduates, gets hired, then out of the blue you get a call that little Jimmy doesn’t have a clue what he is doing at all. Cheating left him totally unprepared for the real world, he’s a complete mess at work, and worse of all, you paid 30 grand for him to learn something and he didn’t. Your precious child is just getting paid to do something he doesn’t know how to do. Not everyone who cheats in their life is a straight up crook, because that would mean that just about every student at the school is a crook, including myself. I have cheated before and thanks to having the most amazing mother in the world that doesn’t let the small things just slide…I learned my lesson. The simple point is, cheating needs to be taken care of and needs to have more serious consequences. It should never be viewed as just the normal thing everybody does. It might be hard for some of us to admit it, but it’s true. With stricter rules on cheating, students would be forced to learn if they want to pass and that’s the way it should be.