Your Cheating Heart

Cheating is not an unusual phenomenon in any classroom. Even the best kids will do it on occasion; especially when they are under pressure to get good grades from their parents.

When I was in high school, I had a science teacher who taught all of the science- biology, chemistry, and physics. He gave all of his tests out of test books. We were able to look ahead at the upcoming tests for the whole year. So a group of us got together and we each copied three different questions from the next test onto our desks and later put them onto paper. Then I compiled them and put together all of the answers, which I then gave back to the group members. Then we would punch pinholes indicating the answers into a pencil the day of the test. The funny thing was that I knew all of the answers anyway. The teacher got suspicious when everyone in the class got 96% or higher except for one girl who scored a 40%. He never did figure out how it was done. The teacher was replaced soon after I graduated. During three years of science, I never did one lab. Everything was done out of a textbook. Eventually that caught up with him. He was a nice guy but a terrible teacher.

Kids think they are too smart for us teachers. They don't realize that every trick they pull has been done hundreds of times before and that many of them I had even done myself.

From my early years in Tamaqua I remember many students. However, one made a lasting impression on me that leads to many stories. Joe M. was a big guy who was just cruising along through school happy with D's and once in a while earning a C. He was taking a short course with me in oceanography and showing no effort at all. I noticed one day that he was chewing tobacco and spitting into a cup that he thought he was keeping well hidden. I made him throw the cup away and told him that he was not allowed to spit into anything in my room and I figured that was the end of it. A few days later I caught him chewing again and was prepared to lay into him when I discovered he wasn't spitting into anything. I asked him what he was doing with the juice. His response was "I'm just swallowing it." and he gave me a big grin. In those days there were rules against smoking but nobody had thought about chewing tobacco. So I just shook my head and continued with the lesson.
Joe scored a "B" on our first test. When I discussed the test with the class, he couldn't answer any of the questions orally. I knew then he was copying from his neighbor. The next test I gave was a big unit test. I made two difefrent versions and made certain Joe's copy was different from his neightbors. No one knew they were different. After the test was given and graded I read off the scores. I read the score of the student next to Joe and it was a 98%. Joe broke into this big grin and looked me right in the eye. Then I read his score of 8% and he almost fell off his seat. Then I explained what I had done. Joe told me "You got me good on that one." and gave me a big, yellow-toothed grin.
The following year I taught the class again and Joe was right in the front row making up the "F" he had from the previous year. We actually got along quite well together and he earned an honest "C" or "D" and did graduate with his class.
A kid like Joe who is lazy and content to just scrape through with minimal effort but at the same time bears no grudges and takes whatever consequences are earned for his behavior is someone who can be a lot of fun to have in the classroom while providing a challenge to the instructor. After all, not everyone will go on to higher education.
I don't know what Joe is up to today but I think I would enjoy sitting down with him in a bar somewhere, sharing a couple beers, and reliving some of his school days. I always felt he would become that kind of a man. After all, only a real man can swallow his chew.

Back to cheating-
I remember one test I gave in a class where the whole test was true-false. Half the class had all true questions and the other half had all false questions. One student had an all true test and marked every answer false (his neighbor had an all false test).
With computers I am able to always give two different versions of the same test. Copying almost completely disappears under those conditions. Unless I am missing something, I don't have much copying going on. I know it goes on in other classes because kids tell me stories. Whenever kids copy or cheat during a test, it is the fault of the teacher. If the teacher is not vigilant or smart enough to prevent cheating, the kids will do it, even if they know the material covered in the test.

Cheating on homework, etc. is another whole topic for s future blog.