I would be willing to bet that throughout high school alone, more than half of the student body has cheated, or has thought about cheating.
It comes second nature to some students to “collaborate” on homework assignments or share worksheets and quiz questions. This apparent issue has been recently unveiled and has spiraled its way to a national headline after last week’s cheating incident here at Central, where several students were caught with pictures of AP exams on their cell phones.

Fox News. CBS. NCTV. The Today Show. This so-called “cheating scandal” has been briefed by some of the largest local news networks in the Chicago-land area and covered by some multi-state broadcasts. I’ve seen Facebook statuses, tweets, Instagram photos, etc. of headlines and reactions to this “breaking” news covering my computer screen.

Everyone keeps coming up with the same question – what lead these kids to cheat in the first place?

It’s a no-brainer to believe that cheating yields success in a class that could be harder without it, yet plagiarism, copying and forgery have serious consequences, like some students have recently experienced first hand.

One of the most prevalent influences in instances involving cheating would be parents without a doubt, and I am most definitely no exception to this “parental pressure” issue.

I come from a household where academic standards run very high, and disciplinary actions are taken if I receive a bad grade in a class or on a test.

The first words out of my mouth when I receive a bad grade are most likely, “my parents are going to kill me.” I, alongside the majority of the student body, would be lying if I said I didn’t feel pressure from my parents when it comes to school.
But something about this topic of interest really strikes me the wrong way; do parents so much of an influence on their children as to cause them to cheat?

In the high school students’ defense, I will be the first one to speak out on behalf of my peers and say that teenagers most certainly do not live simple lives.

We go to school for an average of eight hours a day, not including getting help before or after school, and school sports and clubs that are tacked on to the end of each day. A lot of us have jobs and friends that we need to attend to as well. We are constantly being bombarded with overwhelming amounts of stress. It makes sense to utilize the “easy way out” when presented with an opportunity to cheat you believe is fool-proof, especially with the more-than-limited time left in the day to complete homework.

If you truly believe you will get away with cheating while pleasing your teachers, your parents and yourself, cheating sounds like a pretty good option.

Remember when parents used to say something along the lines of, “even though you don’t think we know everything, we find out everything?” They do. Eventually all of the things you thought you would get away with will catch up to you and bite you in the ass. I have personally never felt the wrath of anything more than this statement, and its important to remember that you will, more times than not, get caught for what you do.

With that said, most people believe that “it isn’t a crime unless you get caught,” which makes perfectly logical sense in cases such as this one. When a few people get caught for something as unheard of as taking pictures of AP tests and distributing them among the school, it may seem like the world is ending to some people. Instances like such cause parents and teachers to crack down on their children even more than before, which really hurts more than it helps.

Never in my 12 years of schooling have I had teachers that make their classes place their phones on their desks to ensure no one cheats on tests, quizzes or even in-class work, but now that all has changed.
Do the students in the clear deserve the extra penalties? No. But will they have to deal with the effects of a few peoples’ dumb decisions?

Absolutely.

From the entirety of this experience, everyone can learn a lesson or two.

Parents: don’t put your kids in a position where they feel like they have to cheat to get a good grade. Unless you want the blame poured on you when they get caught, it isn’t worth what the consequences will be in the end.

As for students, it’s pretty vital to say that from this scandal, we have learned a lot about how one seemingly harmless, yet stupid idea can whirlwind into a hot mess of disastrous media coverage that pokes and prods into our personal lives. I think it’s time to start using some common sense so we don’t end up having our own segment on tomorrow’s edition of “Good Morning America.”