Some students cheat with old methods and new 'techy' tools

ATLANTA, Ga. - Cheating is reaching the "middle majority" of high school students, and not necessarily because the Internet makes it easier to cheat, said a former Catholic high school student who said he once nearly succumbed to the temptation to cheat.

Jared Fattoross, now in college, said his freshman biology teacher at Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, N.J., once gave back a pop quiz unchecked and unmarked. "I've been really busy," he told the students, saying they could grade the quizzes themselves and return it the next day. Fattoross said he went so far as to erase some of his wrong answers on the quiz, and figured out "exactly what score I needed to get a passing grade in biology" before he restored the wrong answers. He got a 70 on the quiz. The teacher, though, had photocopied all of the quizzes before he handed them back to the students. When the class realized that, "some of them were sweating. You could smell it," Fattoross told a standing-room-only workshop crowd April 19 during the National Catholic Educational Association convention in Atlanta. The students who redid their quizzes got two zeroes for having cheated. "Students who have cheated will continue to cheat regardless," Fattoross said, but added that the "middle majority" of students can be "swayed either way." Fattoross' theory is that it isn't laziness that drives students to cheat. They cheat, he said, because they're too busy, as the accelerated pace of high school education and the demands of extracurricular activities, jobs and family whittle down time to study. Teachers and principals at the workshop offered their own experiences of student cheating, including finding an answer sheet folded up on a pupil's lap and answers written on the bottom of a box of tissues while a student ostensibly blows his nose. Another example was students using the Google search engine to find texts to plagiarize; teachers can also use the Web site to identify lifted passages or another site, www.turnitin.com. Students have also used Bluetooth technology on handheld personal digital assistants, such as a Palm Pilot, that feeds them answers from outside the classroom. Bluetooth allows devices to communicate with each other without cables or wires. In this situation, the teacher also had Bluetooth activated and could see the files being swapped. One teacher said her school had to ban hooded sweatshirts because the students hid cell phones inside the front pouch-pockets on the shirts and used the cell phones to receive text messages that contained test answers. Suggestions to curb cheating were many, too: - Reining in parental pressure to fill up their children's course load with honors classes and their off-school hours with extracurricular activities. - Teaching students how to manage their time more effectively to allow for better study habits. - Implementing and enforcing honor codes that also make students culpable if they know of cheating by other students yet fail to report it. - Bringing in parents once their child's cheating has been discovered, and reminding students often of the penalties for cheating. Fattoross recommended a "two-strike" policy: a grade of zero and detention for a first offense, and a "much harsher penalty," which he did not delineate, for a second offense. The problem of cheating, though, is likely to remain whatever tactic is used to curb it. "Ninety-five percent of cheating is not caught," Fattoross said.

Announcing NEW Catholic Online News - Visit Today!

---

Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops