You're Only Cheating Yourself

You're Only Cheating Yourself

I remember as a school kid, cheating in an exam was absolutely shameful. This belief is prevalent even today. It’s in the news all the time – kids are cheating in school in new ways and at unprecedented rates.

Should someone be caught in a public exam be it at the SSC, Inter, Graduation, PG level or any competitive exam, they face immediate and severe punishment of a rustication or getting debarred or whatever. It affects the students life, and mars his/her future for a long part of their life. I really don’t know what happens afterwards. While I feel sorry for them, I am definitely not advocating that such an offence go unpunished.

I feel it is a little too harsh, because in recent times, a lot of businessmen – like in the case of Enron, Satyam, Union Carbide in the case of the Bhopal tragedy, and then the innumerable case of scams 2G, 3G, Fodder scam, match fixing, land scams, Adarsh Society, and the many cases filed by CBI etc. in India and God knows how many cases like this are reported through out the world, the list can go on endlessly, and all of these people are ‘cheaters’ outright blatant cheaters. All cases of cheating and massive one’s at that, but the people accused, involved in these cases and the one’s behind these cases are all either politicians, bureaucrats, army officers, retired judges, etc., enjoy immunity. Trials go on in courts with evidences piling up, and the courts asking for newer and more evidences, all cases drag on for months and years again costing the exchequer a ‘fortune.’ We are mere helpless by-standers, who only talk this for the sake of being in the know of things, that’s all, and keep saying that its of no use. Should they come out on bail like Ramalinga Raju of Satyam is now, he might perhaps want to write a book of the way he grew in a village and then went on to conquer the world till he met his ‘Waterloo.” It will sell a million copies, who knows, and may be honored by the same society that shunned him for all the cheating. He might even make a comeback and this time as a knowledgeable honest author and people applauding him for his honesty, guts, openness etc., and some shameless physcophant might even compare him with the likes of “Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandella,’ etc. Poor people, their memories are far too short.

Going back to cheating in the school ad college level, getting barred for a few years, then making a comeback in life, finishing the exams honorably now, applies for a job, and of course, struggles to get on. In the interview he honestly explains the gap in education etc., saying he was caught ‘cheating’ in the exams. The interviewers will make note of this and may not select the candidate too. This after serving the punishment. How devastating and bad this can be. Isn’t is bad for us to have such a mind-set and myopic thinking. We act without any conviction or courage. This I think is even more shameful than being caught and punished for cheating. Absolute sickening double-standards isn’t it, but yes, this is the truth.

One of the reasons is the way schools and parents deal with or ignore the underlying issues of integrity and character. For instance, a popular thing adults say to discourage kids from cheating is, “You’re only cheating yourself.”

Of course cheating damages credibility and character, but it’s also dishonest and unfair. Cheaters don’t just cheat themselves. They cheat everyone affected by their cheating including honest students who are put at a competitive disadvantage and college admission officers and employers who think a student’s grade accurately reflects his or her competence. What’s more, cheaters dishonor their families, teachers, and schools.

When we tell kids they’re cheating themselves because they aren’t learning the material, we have to remember that most kids who cheat think what they’re asked to learn is unimportant. They’re quite comfortable not knowing the value of X or the capital of Zimbabwe. As to mastering skills, cynical and coldly pragmatic students believe that learning to cheat is more useful than learning the material.

Finally, it’s dangerous to promote self-centered, cost-benefit calculations about cheating in a way that ignores or minimizes the crucial moral issues of honesty and honor. Nearly two-thirds of high school students cheat on exams because they’re not afraid of getting caught and they get better grades.

To address the problem, we must promote integrity, not self-interest, and we must tell kids that whether they get away with it or not, cheating's wrong.
Of course, it helps if we really believe that.