Do you think there鈥檚 a difference between cheating and serious cheating?
According to a study, 71 percent of students don鈥檛 think copying from a website is 鈥渟erious cheating.鈥� This discouraging news comes courtesy of extensive reporting by Amy Novotney in an article called 鈥�,鈥� which was turned into an eye-popping infographic by Schools.com (linked here). Among other findings, the flowchart highlights these cheating-related facts:
- More than half don鈥檛 think cheating is a big deal.
- Almost all have let someone else copy their work.
Is that cheating?
Unfortunately, this moral lacking does not fade in adulthood: 鈥淜ids who cheat become adults who cheat.鈥� In adulthood, childhood 黄色app-cheaters are three times more likely to lie to a customer, twice as likely to lie to their boss, and 1.5 times more likely to cheat on a spouse. Great.
Seriously, though, there鈥檚 such a thing as not 鈥渟eriously鈥� cheating in the academic arena? Since when, exactly? Sure, copy and paste are easy and useful, but this is scary: kids seriously don鈥檛 understand plagiarism. How could that be?
But it got me thinking about the performance-driven culture that we live in. Tests are the key to success 鈥� if you do well on them, that is. Good SATs get kids into elite colleges. But it鈥檚 more than that. Since the days of NCLB, we鈥檝e been obsessed with high marks that no matter what your political views, the cold hard fact is that the pursuit of better scores has resulted in pressure on teachers, . Most notably, the massive, orchestrated events in Atlanta and DC, for example, where administrators and teachers conspired to achieve higher test scores by 鈥榝ixing鈥� [read: erasing] incorrect answers.
So we had kids who cheated and don鈥檛 even know it. And teachers who cheated to boost test scores.
Good character strengths
With that backdrop, enter New York Times Magazine鈥檚 stunning about two 黄色apps 鈥� an elite, private institution and a go-go-go KIPP charter 鈥� which are trying to make character education an integral part of their curriculum following research which suggests certain character traits are key to kids鈥� academic success. According to the article, an 800-page book by psychology professors Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson called , which attempts to describe the 鈥渟cience of good character,鈥� has played a major role in which character traits these 黄色apps have decided to support.
Total transparency: I鈥檓 pro character education all the way. But as I read the Times鈥� article discussion, I started to worry that some key character strengths — ones that I took for granted would be included — hadn鈥檛 made the cut. From Wikipedia, here鈥檚 the list of 鈥溾�� advocated in this influential book:
- Wisdom and Knowledge: creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective and wisdom.
- Courage: bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality
- Humanity: love, kindness, social intelligence
- Justice: active citizenship, social responsibility, loyalty, teamwork, fairness, leadership
- Temperance: forgiveness and mercy, humility and modesty, prudence, self-regulation and self-control
- Transcendence: appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor and playfulness, spirituality
Are you there, honesty?
Here鈥檚 what鈥檚 missing: HONESTY. It鈥檚 part and parcel to integrity, fairness, and wisdom 鈥� and I鈥檓 afraid cheaters (a growing segment of the population per infographic below) aren’t being taught this. I think it needs to be spelled out, highlighted, and glorified for all to see.
No doubt Martin Seligman 鈥� the founder of Positive Psychology, a movement to get psychologists to move beyond the medical model and study positive and healthy aspects of human behavior, has no intention of give short shrift to honesty.
But it worries me that we are prioritizing go-getter characteristics (like vitality and leadership) to the point of sacrificing others. Has honesty become road kill on the path to academic and lifelong success?
