Friday, September 6, 2013

Finally Forgiving Cheaters

When I initially started teaching I made a severe announcement to my impressionable sixth graders: "Cheaters are just like liars and thieves".  It was made in hope of encouraging respect for those who study for tests and disrespect for those who don't. Since then, I've come to realize that encouraging any type of disrespect for any person should not be made from the teaching pulpit as it is contrary to the teaching ideal: developing children to make their own, hopefully good, moral choices. Teachers should bring enlightenment, not judgment.

I've also come to realize that children who cheat are not easily categorized. There are certainly the ones who didn't prepare but that's too shallow. We should consider other questions. Why didn't they prepare? Did they have the materials? Did they understand how to study? Many young students in this test-oppressive culture are being loaded with lessons to memorize without some type of minimal guidance on how to create study tools or how exactly how to prepare for tests. This is no small task. It may take an experienced teacher several classroom days to properly instruct the "how" as much as the "what" to study. After some time, I learned to incrementally teach single steps, per test, on particular studying and test-taking skills. One drop at a time to encourage them to swim and not sink.

A crucial question is: Did they have support from home?  That's not to instantly blame parents (stop blaming parents!) for something they have failed to do but  to consider that some students' home life are not supportive due to external factors. They do not have desks, materials such as dictionaries, access to the internet, do not have privacy because they share a bedroom with three other siblings, are left alone at home without guidance or support because their parent or both parents work the night shift, have other responsibilities at home which interfere with their schoolwork, such as making dinner or helping with the laundry, etc. Teachers cannot change their home life but teachers who are aware of the challenges their individual students may face could possibly provide words of encouragement, wisdom, advice or simply a list of steps of what and how to study.

There will be students who cheat because they are lazy, but they cheat because they have learned how to succeed at cheating. Cheating is unintentionally encouraged in the classroom which fails to prepare its students with methods of how to succeed on tests or projects. Successful cheaters are not something that should be encouraged in the classroom. The classroom produces the world, you know.

Children who cheat sometimes do so out of desperation. Desperation is not to be sneered at. Desperation is a cry for help and indicates that the child wants to succeed, knows succeeding is important, even if it's only important to his or her teacher. A desperate child should be comforted and forgiven. Then that child should be taught.

“Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
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