It’s funny that you asked an inside view question. It was a Polish high school of the supposedly very good kind.
From the outside view, why wouldn’t they? Students care about grades, risk of getting caught is tiny, and respect for school among them is really really low.
The only student who wouldn’t cheat would be one that: doesn’t care about grades/passing at all (but student like that would just fail the school), or is naturally great at everything (but many subjects require plenty of rote memorization, won’t work), has unusually high level of respect for the school system (I don’t find it terribly likely), or has unusually high level of fear of getting caught.
OK, perhaps more than 5% then, I can see many kids being unreasonably afraid of getting caught.
The only student who wouldn’t cheat would be one that:
The reason I never cheated was because I thought it was wrong. This has nothing to do with respect for the school system.
The other reason was because I knew it wouldn’t help me learn anything. This has more to do with respect for the school system than my previous reason.
I’ve found that learning how to cheat was one of the more valuable skills I gained from school. Admittedly I work in reverse engineering, so my mindset isn’t necessarily entirely standard :)
I agree that 1⁄3 is too low a number that has never cheated. I’d say that of the people I study with, and we are at a remarkably high level of education in a profession with a fiduciary role, about 90+% of them cheat.
I’m one of those who don’t cheat, for the reason you gave that I don’t care about grades. However, I study in order to improve myself to be better at fulfilling my chosen role in society and for the knowledge’s sake. Cheating in no way improves understanding or knowledge, and is thusly completely useless to me. However, I not only do not fail school, but conversely am one of the top scorers in the school (and by extension because of the school’s position, one of the top students in the nation), because I achieve higher levels of understanding than almost everyone else, who use rote learning instead, as it is effective enough for examinations’ purposes.
I take opposition to your assertion that one must care about grades to get good grades.
For what it’s worth, at my high school the incidence of (recurrent and/or obvious) cheating was closer to 50%, and even then the majority of the cheating was on homework, where some of it may not technically have been cheating at all.
This may have been due to an unusually high probability of getting caught (private school, small classes, and engaged teachers) and unusually strong punishments, up to and including expulsion.
Maybe at a more difficult highschool, cheating will be more prevalent. I bet that at average schools, though, it’s just as easy to coast without cheating.
I’m confused—all schools in large geographical areas tend to have pretty much the same curricula and standards, so what are “easy” and “difficult” schools?
[Public] Schools in my metropolitan area vary wildly—typically the quality (and difficulty) of a school varies directly with the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood where it’s located.
It’s funny that you asked an inside view question. It was a Polish high school of the supposedly very good kind.
From the outside view, why wouldn’t they? Students care about grades, risk of getting caught is tiny, and respect for school among them is really really low.
The only student who wouldn’t cheat would be one that: doesn’t care about grades/passing at all (but student like that would just fail the school), or is naturally great at everything (but many subjects require plenty of rote memorization, won’t work), has unusually high level of respect for the school system (I don’t find it terribly likely), or has unusually high level of fear of getting caught.
OK, perhaps more than 5% then, I can see many kids being unreasonably afraid of getting caught.
The reason I never cheated was because I thought it was wrong. This has nothing to do with respect for the school system.
The other reason was because I knew it wouldn’t help me learn anything. This has more to do with respect for the school system than my previous reason.
I’ve found that learning how to cheat was one of the more valuable skills I gained from school. Admittedly I work in reverse engineering, so my mindset isn’t necessarily entirely standard :)
I agree that 1⁄3 is too low a number that has never cheated. I’d say that of the people I study with, and we are at a remarkably high level of education in a profession with a fiduciary role, about 90+% of them cheat.
I’m one of those who don’t cheat, for the reason you gave that I don’t care about grades. However, I study in order to improve myself to be better at fulfilling my chosen role in society and for the knowledge’s sake. Cheating in no way improves understanding or knowledge, and is thusly completely useless to me. However, I not only do not fail school, but conversely am one of the top scorers in the school (and by extension because of the school’s position, one of the top students in the nation), because I achieve higher levels of understanding than almost everyone else, who use rote learning instead, as it is effective enough for examinations’ purposes.
I take opposition to your assertion that one must care about grades to get good grades.
For what it’s worth, at my high school the incidence of (recurrent and/or obvious) cheating was closer to 50%, and even then the majority of the cheating was on homework, where some of it may not technically have been cheating at all.
This may have been due to an unusually high probability of getting caught (private school, small classes, and engaged teachers) and unusually strong punishments, up to and including expulsion.
Maybe at a more difficult highschool, cheating will be more prevalent. I bet that at average schools, though, it’s just as easy to coast without cheating.
I’m confused—all schools in large geographical areas tend to have pretty much the same curricula and standards, so what are “easy” and “difficult” schools?
[Public] Schools in my metropolitan area vary wildly—typically the quality (and difficulty) of a school varies directly with the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood where it’s located.