I applaud Dr. Howard Gardner for his op-ed in the Washington Post -- "When Ambition Trumps Ethics" -- relating to the current alleged and evolving cheating scandal at Harvard University.
In a recent interview with Dr. Gardner, we discussed a number of the moral break-downs in our education system, including the problem of cheating (The Global Search for Education: What Is Good?).
According to a survey of 24,000 high school students in grades 9-12, 95% of students said they cheated during the course of their education, ranging from letting somebody copy their homework to cheating on tests.
Before we can begin to find solutions to cheating, we need to ask the right questions. With the intent of furthering the conversation, here is my list of questions with regard to cheating:
- What can be done to better address students compromising ethics as they deal with performance pressure?
- Do our children really understand the difference between what is cheating and what is not?
- If students' business, sports and political role models cheat and get away with it, can we expect students not to cheat?
- If students' teachers, parents and peers are cheating, can we expect students not to cheat?
- Has cheating become an indelible part of our culture?
- How much blame can we place on standardized testing for the problems with cheating?
- Do we believe society needs to challenge our culture's current definition of success in order to help our children better understand why cheating leads to a precarious life and a precarious society?
- What should be the punishment for someone who cheats?
- Who should take responsibility for the increasing number of cheating scandals over the past few years? Students? Parents? Educators? Society?
- Is it time to focus more on the research of ethics leaders like Dr. Gardner in order to find solutions to cheating?
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Andy Hargreaves (UK), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, "The Global Search for Education" and "How Will We Read?" She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
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I am thinking of a system where your learning is measured by the individual improvement you show from previous year/course/class - this could be easily done with the current technology tools.
Is it time to focus more on the research of ethics leaders like Dr. Gardner in order to find solutions to cheating?
-Yes,
The pressures of our society and looking for an easy way to get to the top is part of the problem. The county has to shift to a more moral compass.
- The moral direction of the country has to change. Politicians, government, leading figures, etc lie and cheat being poor examples. The education system should deal with ethics, etc.
Do our children really understand the difference between what is cheating and what is not?
- For the most part they do. There are some grey areas.
If students' business, sports and political role models cheat and get away with it, can we expect students not to cheat?
-No
If students' teachers, parents and peers are cheating, can we expect students not to cheat?
-No
Has cheating become an indelible part of our culture?
-Unfortunately, Cheating is prevalent for kids w/o any good moral compass.
How much blame can we place on standardized testing for the problems with cheating?
-Not much, Cheating will happen whether the tests are standardized or not.
Do we believe society needs to challenge our culture's current definition of success in order to help our children better understand why cheating leads to a precarious life and a precarious society?
-Success by 'any means' is the problem. We need to show that success gained legitimately is more rewarding.
What should be the punishment for someone who cheats?
-Yes,but appropriate to to the 'crime'.
Who should take responsibility for the increasing number of cheating scandals over the past few years? Students? Parents? Educators? Society?
-All of the above.
8. The punishment for students that cheats is a F grade and need be forced to take the class again next semester or being expelled from school depend on what grade they are in. Teachers caught cheating should be fired right away.
9. Everyone involved in the increasing number of cheating scandals over the past few years should take responsibility for their own actions.
10. Sure there is it time to focus more on the research of ethics leaders like Dr. Gardner in order to find solutions to cheating as long as I as a taxpayer do not have to pay for it.
5. Yes, cheating has because an indelible part of American culture. Just look at that shows that American watch on TV like 16 and pregnant or Jersey Shore that encourage bad behavior. An example is this is during this year Little League World Series, the kids who wore a "I won't cheat" patch on the uniform.
6. No, the blame should not be placed on standardize testing, but the actually people who cheated. We need to get rid of standardize testing because it does not work. We need to teach children how to learn, not learning for tests, so we can decide how much money that school gets. We need to return to education to state level and abolish the department of education.
1. What can be done to better address students compromising their ethics as they deal with performance pressure is to teach children the virtues of hard work and honesty. Why work hard when you can get reward for being lazy and dishonest, when you know that you will get a handout from the government. We need to get rid of entitlement and the entitlement mentality we have in American society.
2. Yes, children do understand the difference between what is cheating and what is not. Any child that says do not understand the difference is probably lying. Nobody wants to take for responsibility their own action these days because it is easier to find a scape goat. An example of this is class welfare that some politicians use to divide us.
3. Of course, we should expect students to cheat if their roles models are. The truth is children need to realize that should not look to sports, politician, or celebrity as role models.
http://failuremag.com/feature/article/cheating_culture/
eric
1. There are still people in our society, including educators, business people, politicians, and even celebrities, that have a strong code of ethics.
2. Just as we can look at other countries for their success in education versus our country, it is also apparent to me that virtue and ethical behavior is practiced more broadly and consistently in many foreign countries than in the US.
3. Call me naive, but I think that ethical business, governments, and societies ultimately will have greater success than corrupt, selfish, unethical ones.
4. It is possible to solve ethical issues by bringing together all the constituents and agreeing on a path. I would be surprised if this was not a path of "good works".
Interesting by its omission on this list, but just as powerful a cause, is the place of advertising and the (so-adored-by-many) consumer marketplace. When we consider that advertisers and the businesses they represent have been telling us since the 60s how much we deserve, we cannot be surprised that everyone constantly feels he is entitled good grades, money, respect, and standing. L'Oreal assures us "You're worth it!" Yahoo tells us "It's all about you!" McDonald's has run a nearly decade-long ad campaign in which "I" am the subject of the slogan, not the product advertised.
And of course we are perpetually inundated with ads from lawyers telling us that things are not our fault.
So of course kids cheat. It's the logical symptom of the disease that underlies our society.