The Rise of Academic Dishonesty and Why it Matters.

With all the news surrounding academic dishonesty in high schools and colleges recently, I thought it timely to address the issue to our community.

Below is my chapel talk delivered on 9/17/2012. 

In my 23 plus years of teaching,  I have consistently explored the essential question posed by Socrates over 2000 years ago: How should one live?

This question rests at the heart of why we do the things we do and why we don’t do other things. It points us toward not what we, or I should do in life, but rather what our responsibility to our community must be as we live our lives.

In answering, it requires us to name those ethical and moral standards that must be in place for each of us in order that each of us has the same chances to live a happy and fulfilling life.

We have freedom to become what we want to become, yet that freedom is only possible when we are free from obstacles that unfairly limit our ability to pursue our lives.

In The Social Contract, Rousseau, the French political philosopher, wrote: “Man is free, but everywhere is in chains.” His argument that political states tend to repress freedom and equality and that a new social contract should be created by which we aim to achieve the common good through enabling each individual to pursue lives of meaning while understanding and necessarily limiting certain activities that are bad for the community as a whole. 

So, let’s talk about freedom.

We're able to live meaningful lives when we are free from obstacles that unfairly limit our ability to act and do what is desirable and purposeful. That said, however, a life without challenges in and of itself is not desirable. So, we need the right kinds of challenges obstacles to strengthen us and to help us understand who we are and what we’re good at and what we need to work on so that we can flourish and be happy.

The right kinds of challenges provide the necessary skills and resources that allow us to pursue our lives. These things are things developed when we learn and accomplish the tasks our teachers assign to us. School, or more broadly, Education, is the thing that gives us the freedom to do those things we should do.

Now, in a free society, not everything is allowed. We aren’t allowed to kill one another, cheat on our taxes, or run red lights. Why not? Because those acts interfere with the lives of others and as such are generally discouraged.

Teachers teach the things they teach because it’s been agreed that those courses and experiences within the school are good for individuals, but also good for the community. We learn math and science, art and music, English and foreign languages, athletics and health, and we learn about the life of the spirit and how that can help us all understand ourselves and others in the context of doing good and making thoughtful decisions. We ask you to learn these things because we believe they matter not only for you as individuals, but for the community you’ll help to shape.

Which brings me to the topic of cheating.

It’s very clear that more and more people are cheating in school. From Stuyvesant High School in New York City, to Harvard, and even to our very own Casady School, more students are involved in cutting corners, plagiarizing, and whatever else to get the ‘right grade’.  Technology makes it easier than ever to find answers, copy text, and send pictures of tests to friends.

Is it laziness, poor upbringing, over-pressured expectations, or simply an inability to understand why not cheating is so important?

It’s probably a combination of all those things, but I think we as a school need to do better to help you all understand why it’s really not ok to cheat on your tests, papers, assignments, or anything else. We sometimes make it easy for you to make poor decisions because we believe that you know better and because you’ve  signed the honor code. We make the mistake of believing that that is and should be enough.

Thing is, when you cheat, you cheat yourself. When you cheat, you’ve decided to miss the opportunity to gain the skills and knowledge you’ll need to make the best choices possible in your lives. Essentially, you’ve said to the School: “I don’t believe that what you’re trying to teach me is relevant, I don’t trust that you have my best interests in mind, and I don’t care about myself enough to do what’s necessary to live a meaningful life, at least in the short term.”

So, whether you believe the work to be relevant or not, the fact that you might not have approached it with a true honest effort handicaps you and it is disrespectful to those who have chosen to do their best and to act with honor. While this is only a small part of the answer to our Essential Question, at least in this, one should strive to live honestly and with integrity; simply put: don’t cheat.