By Alice Newhall (January 14, 2002)

Not a Big Deal--cheating. Isn’t it awful? Isn’t it horrible? Isn’t it simply astonishing that at George Mason, one of the top public schools in the United States, something like that occurs on probably a daily basis? No, not at all. It’s that simple. It doesn’t surprise me that people cheat, it certainly doesn’t shock me, and it doesn’t create in me any sort of moral outrage. The most that would possibly come out of me, on account of someone cheating would be a "Oh, too bad for that guy he got caught,’ not that he cheated, but that he got caught doing it.

That’s what the issue is, catching people who cheat isn’t it? Well how do you catch them? How do you even know if they’ve cheated? Sure, if you find a "cheat-sheet" in their shoe or hand, or anywhere on their person, or if their answers mysteriously match those of the person sitting next to them, that’s easy. Well, what about the kids switching answers in TA for some math homework? Well gosh, shouldn’t their TA just turn them in right away, no second thoughts? Detention all around? That will never happen. It’s unrealistic. No one cares that much. 

What is cheating? Well if some guy’s with a girl who ain’t his girlfriend, that’s cheating. Does that have anything to do with school? Should the honor code cover that? Well pardon me, I haven’t even mentioned the honor code and what all the fuss is about. I really don’t know to be honest.

What I understand of the situation is that recently there have been quite a number of incidents of students being caught cheating, and therefore the school or the school board, hey maybe both, are considering instituting an honor code. I hate to sound cynical, but that is probably the most idealistic, unrealistic idea I’ve heard in a good while. Students are cheating, well then let’s institute an honor code so that we can punish them just the same as we do now. Great; that fixes everything. This problem isn’t a new one; it’s an old one, only with sloppier students. It isn’t that more students are cheating, it’s that they’ve gotten lazier about it. I don’t see the school taking any action to crack down on cheating; I’ve heard no warnings from teachers about the dangers of it, or the increasing danger of it. 

The honor code is a nice idea, sure, and I’m sure it’s been a nice idea for many years at prep schools where it’s part of the tradition. Isn’t 2002 a little bit late to be instituting a code of conduct that was in vogue sometime in the early 1900s? Repeating myself, it sounds good, but think about what it sounds like. What would it mean? A set of values instituted on a populace. What’s in an honor code? Some statement like I shall not cheat. Well that’s sort of an unspoken and spoken rule if you’re in school. You understand that’s the case, and like everything else in life, if you’re going to break the rule you’re going to do it whether it’s called Rule A or Rule B. It’s like painting the same old house a different color; it’s still the same house when you’re done, just a little newer and shinier looking. 

The point of getting an education is to get an education in real as well as academic matters. Well this is real life folks, if you don’t get caught, you get praised and if you get caught you get punished. Those are the basic facts, that’s how life is and it’s best to learn that now. If you take the risk to do something, anything against the rules/laws there’s always risk and there’s always the chance of gaining something, the only way to eliminate cheating, would be to eliminate what you gain from it and that simply isn't’ possible. 

So just deal with it the same way you always have. Don’t give us anymore bull to deal with. An honor code isn’t going to change anyone’s actions, unless the punishments for breaking it are a whole lot more severe than the old ones. It’s our parents’ job to give us our morals and to shape our character, and by the time we’ve reached high school it’s pretty well molded in the basic shape it’s going to stay. I didn’t even know that the school was considering an honor code until I went to a Lasso meeting, I would easily bet that half the school populace has no idea that they are either, and that it wouldn’t phase them in the least to learn that. No one cares, that’s all there is too it.