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Students cheat, lie, steal, but say they're good
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Good behavior examples for kids begin at home, church and school. Those three should be the areas of concentration.
[For those who may whine about my including the church, I therefore challenge you to thus concentrate on exposing your children to positive home and school environments.]
In the defense of youth behavior, earlier generations of adults throughout history have been concluding the "youth of today" will ruin the country and social structure with their behavior. Don't look now but we're still here.
Let's have some hope that our youth will mature responsibily.
Thanks!
Oh... and cheating is the NORM. Dishonesty starts at home. They're just modeling what they've learned from their parents.
Punishing them is often not in my best interest as now I have to fight the student's attitude as well as the screaming parent defending her poor baby who didn't do nuthin'.
In fact, ADULTS ARE THE ROOT OF THIS PROBLEM, NOT THE CHILDREN.
Parents and teachers whine about how youth today don't respect authority, but look at them. They color their hair, apply age defying potions, get cosmetic surgery, buy clothes and even cars to make them appear younger, and refuse to act their age.
If adults don't respect the virtues of age, how can they expect children to?
History will remember Baby Boomers as the most inadequate generation of all time.
Look at the world today. From economics to ethics to the environment, to everything, on the BABY BOOMERS' WATCH, everything turned for the worse. Of course their children are worse as well.
Kids today are spending more time with television and the Internet than their parents, and the parents want it that way. They don't want to be bothered by parenting.
It will be up to those kids who had decent parents to not only make something of their lives, but to save the world from the wreck the baby boomers and their worthless progeny have left it in.
If that is even possible.
And if you want to talk politicians, put George W. Bush in there while you're at it.
I too worked hard in HS thinking that when I got to college it would pay off. Then I talked and listened to my fellow students at the U. I would say that around 64 percent would be accurate for college too.
In just ONE of my classes the guy next to me had his homework done by his wife, he shared those answers with those next to him, the guy behind just used copies of last years tests he got from his dorm mate and shared those. That was 2 out of 3 rows of students copying off each other. I didn�t out of principle and my grades suffered because I couldn�t keep up with the rest of the class and the teacher would slow down because the majority of students were doing so well so quickly. I was advised to get assistance from my fellow students who couldn�t explain anything to me because all they had were the answers, not the methods to devise them.
I work in the financial sector and while I have seen few be dishonest with peoples finances I do see cheating from the company. Coworkers who "forget" frequently to punch out for lunch to get a free hour of overtime, or take an hour bathroom break when they know the new guys will work twice as hard without knowing better. And working the systems to inflate work numbers not only make the lazy employees look good but their managers as well.
Our renegade Supreme Court, in the 1950's, decided to legislate from the bench on this, and introduced a concept of "Separation of Church and State", and began forcing the removal of teaching morals out of the Bible from public schools.
Guess what. You remove the teaching of morals from the education of our youth, and then expect them to have morals?
Duh!
While I agree that values relating to cheating and all the rest are learned primarily at home, I�m not sure the things cited above are indicative of the problem. It�s more like parents cheating on taxes, padding insurance claim, bringing home supplies from work, speeding, sliding thru stop signs, using grandma�s handicapped tag to park in the handicapped space when grandma absent, not returning extra change in the grocery line, not speaking up if a cashier forgets to ring up an item. The details of honesty. We rationalize by saying it doesn�t matter, or nobody gets hurt, or it doesn�t cost anyone anything. But it does matter, someone does get hurt and there is a cost. Each generation lets �the little things� slide and the standard goes down over the years. So while schools and churches can help, ultimately the family needs to get better in order to stop the decline.
In fact it wasnt a week ago that my husband was looking at a large homemade candycane just out of curiousity and it slipped. It shattered on the floor and I talked him into hiding it behind the shelf. It only took him a minute before he went back and grabbed it. He decided to pay for his mistake and we took it to the cashier who also tried to talk him out of it twice, even when he explained the situation.
Looking back at it now, how bad off is our society that a little responsability is not only uncommon but strange.
By the way the ease of cheating and stealing today does not determine integrity, honesty, and moral values. These are determined long before the situation presented itself. However, the ease with which and individual's integrity can be bought does indicate problems in our society.
Cheating is a natural response to a coercive environment. We have forced generations of people to learn what, where, and how they don't want to learn... and then we wonder why Johnny hates school!
Compulsion ruined Soviet economics -- the workers quietly rebelled and would only produce enough to keep out of trouble. (sound familiar?)
WHY, OH WHY do we think we can compel people to learn against their will and expect them to be productive and moral learners? HELLO!!
There are several dozen schools world wide that have ZERO cheating, because they aren't compulsory environments.
Compulsion Kills. Freedom Works.
Keep in mind that the nation's response to Nixon was entirely different than to Clinton. Nixon was forced to resign or face impeachment. We as a nation yawned when Clinton lied in office.
Expectations have changed. It seems acceptable to lie and cheat if the return is great enough. Would the nation have cared that Enron was cooking the books if it had not resulted in failure?
Unfortuneately it seems that we have sold the values of our youth for twenty pieces of silver. We have taught them that success is of higher worth than integrity and honesty.
If I want a song I "download" it off the net.
If I want a movie I borrow it and rip a copy.
If I want a cd I have a friend rip me a copy.
If I want a picture I copy and paste it.
If I want the "intellectual property" of someone else I copy and paste it.
If I want a research paper I download a copy.
Is it any wonder our young people are confused about what is ethical and what is not?
My Dad was Honest and so am I
My kiids were raised to be Honest
While I agree that character issues are vital, let's not be lemmings. The more sensational an article is the more people will read it. Before assessing blame, look real hard at the poll. Everyone knows that polls can be manipulated in a myriad of ways. In fact, it doesn't take much nowadays to create a poll that supports ones' personal opinion.
I will say this, in a world that pushes a win at all costs mentality, it is very easy to see how short cuts will be utilized to ensure victory or success. It is always harder to risk failure.
The fact is, everyone has a dirty little secret to hide. Nobody is on looking at this thread is perfect. While I agree with points made by previous participants, lets' keep things in perspective.
I also don't think it has ANYTHING to do with taking Christianity out of schools. If you want God in schools that's fine, but my kids worship to Buddha and public school is no place for your missionaries!
You can have ethics without religion!
The Testing Center was made many years ago for a specific amount of students, but this number has increased in the last years. The most clear and alarming consequence of this problem is that students lose time, which they could have used in many other things such as doing homework, studying for another test, working, etc.
This is a serious problem, and BYU must find a solution. There are many, and a good beginning can be providing more places for getting exams and providing more desks where students take their tests. I personally cheat on tests to. All of us here do to. So what?.
The green space that has opened up like a blooming flower in springtime on the south side of campus, where once was the dark and dreary Knight Mangum Building, has inspired me to speak on behalf of the Lord's grass. First of all, I would like to personally thank the BYU administration for their decision to plant grass at a time when grass is threatened at every turn by building projects.
I feel we have begun to take grass for granted, disrespecting its functional and aesthetic value. Picture for a moment, if you will, a grassless educational experience. Nowhere but the library to read The Daily Universe, nowhere to unwind between classes with a nap or snack. Those of us who have visited places where grass is scarce should know better than most the bleak consequences of grass negligence.
If I want to get the scholarship, the bar is raised so high, I cant afford to NOT cheat.
Thats why I push my kids to do what it takes to get the grade.
Welcome to the real world.
Just like your unintended spelling error which shows your lack of thought,intelligence,insight etc, you are the problem. Don't be surprised if your so wonderfully tutored--by you--ethically challenged children end up failing life's real challenges or in jail.
Ethics begin at home. They must be modeled. There are obviously many more deeply ethically flawed people like yourself given the numbers in this article.
Just remember this absolute truism--"What goes around comes around." You lie, steal, cheat,--it'll come back at you. When it does, don't cry on society's shoulder--remember you earned it!!
When someone can pass the buck they can; it's because we make special allowance for one gender, age group,race etc that there is a pandemic of bad behavior from that gender, age group etc.
Hold people accountable for their own acts and then, and only then, will you see an improvement in behavior.
...The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
1. They are afraid to. After all they may be prosecuted and then the State or its appointees will see to it they get a really bad upbringing.
2. They believe that young people are angels; if their youngsters go wrong, they reason, it must be their fault as parents etc etc
The best you can do, and it will take sacrifice, is to teach them sound principles as early as they can understand a simple sentence or two, and don't let up, and also be the example you would like them to follow.
Don't let very little children play around the traffic (literally or symbolically) that they have not the sense, imagination or skills to avoid. Teach them to treat others as they would like to be treated. The word is a powerful weapon, an iron rod they can safely hold onto, don't spare this rod.
Then if they go wrong it is unmitigatedly their own choice, it will not be your fault. In that case the courts will 'beat them up' when they are eighteen and if you are smart you will let them.
Tell them that you accept their best work, whatever that is.
Teachers will never take a piece of late work from your child if you instruct them not to.
My daughter turns in all her work, including late work, but the teachers are instructed not to give her credit if it is late.
My daughter earns her grade, and still learns.
I can see how these �dears� can think that what they do is �OK�, because many are blamed but none are responsible.
Why is it that we can�t understand that sometime between the beginning of mankind and today that these students chose to these deeds. It matters not why they chose; it matters that they did choose; therefore, they & only they are responsible for their choice & must accept the accompanying consequences, be they positive or negative.
In the full range of life these consequences will be negative.. If this blog is any indication, the immediate consequence has been and continues to be a positive reinforcement of these behaviors from those in authority and their peers. The negative consequence is delayed; thus, may not be fully recognized as a direct result of the choices they made at this time.
How sad.
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