I guess I'm the first person to say that yes, I did cheat, and no, I don't feel guilty.
What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get the right answer, then you're responsible for that. If you take a shortcut to get the right answer, then it's not a bad thing until you get to a situation where you refuse to do what it takes to get the right answer.
Given a choice between wasting my time on meaningless schoolwork and cheating and keeping the time to myself, I'll take cheating, and if I went back I'd cheat again.
Why bother going to school if this is how you view it?
I think the problem with cheating is that it's fundamentally dishonest. It's not that you're using someone else's work to accomplish something, as we all do this every day in our jobs, it's that you're lying and presenting that work as your own.
Why bother going to school? Because some of us are legally obliged to, and not doing so would be breaking the law.
It's dishonest, yes, but when you're in a situation where your two choices are spending time learning something on your own versus not copying a busywork homework assignment from a friend... the first stops seeming so unethical.
You may be legally required to be present, but that doesn't mean you have to do anything. I have no particular problem with copying busywork, but claiming you're required to do any such work is a cop out. (Also it is shockingly easy in the US to get out of the legal requirement of attending school, even of one's own volition when they've reached high school age.)
You can do nothing, but if you're the type that wants an education (i.e. a decent university with math, physics, bio, cs, or etc courses available), you have to comply with the demands of the system.
You're hurting no one through your so-called "dishonesty."
Do you have a better solution? The system cannot be fixed to a complete extent quickly. My solution is to avoid busywork classes and get high grades in the busywork classes so I can just skip assignments instead as often as possible.
You're hurting no one through your so-called "dishonesty."
Not true. You harm the honest students that are denied academic opportunity because dishonest students have higher grades. And by the way, it isn't "so-called" dishonesty, it is by definition dishonest. Whether you regard it as ethical or not does not change the meaning of the word.
Do you have a better solution?
What you propose is not a solution at all. It is an exploit.
In terms of what it does for me, it's a solution, since it gets rid of the problem I have. Isn't it?
Either way, I'd like to hear other solutions. I'm not content wasting my life away with busywork assigned in school, and I do not like the fact that mild academic dishonesty is necessary to combat that, so I would gladly listen to other suggestions.
By the way, 'mild' is mild. I'm not talking about stealing code or copying projects or anything. I'm talking about (every so often) asking a friend for answers to questions on near-worthless homework assignments.
As a side note, I'm not exactly sure why I'm being downvoted. Is there a more reasonable way to discuss this?
In terms of what it does for me, it's a solution, since it gets rid of the problem I have.
You could say the same for theft, robbery, and murder. At some point in deciding how to act you must consider the effect your actions have on others. I call it an exploit because it exploits the broken nature of the system which rewards dishonest behavior. Your "solution" merely perpetuates the problem for everyone.
academic dishonesty is necessary
It is not necessary to achieve either of the aims you have described (not wasting your life away and getting into a decent university). The former can be achieved by not doing the work. The latter can be achieved by doing the work to earn adequate grades. Neither requires dishonesty.
It is not even necessary to achieve both. Withdrawing from school and getting a GED avoids wasting one's life away there, and getting into a decent college can be facilitated by enrolling in a community college and obtaining the appropriate test scores. This does not require dishonesty, wasting time, or forgoing educational opportunity.
I'm not exactly sure why I'm being downvoted.
FWIW, it isn't me. I don't like drive-by downvoting either.
The fact that somebody is denied academic opportunity is not the fault of the person who cheats but of the social/economic system that does not allow everybody to have academic opportunities.
Not all the subjects at school suck so much, so you don't have to cheat at everything. And even if you cheat, it doesn't necessarily mean you must cheat 100%, e.g. at all questions and you could still learn something.
I don't like people who cheat a lot, at that point going to school is becoming useless indeed, but when you don't have enough freedom to choose your subjects or they are taught just to be taught, a bit of cheating eliminates a lot of headaches.
That's a bullshit way of phrasing it. Let's stick to how I said it.
What matters is that you end up with the right thing. If you can easily get the right thing by copying somebody else, then do that. That doesn't excuse your not learning how to do it on your own, but there's no nobility to finding out the answer yourself, beyond what personal satisfaction it brings you.
I code using other people's languages and other people's plug-ins. I take visual ideas from other people's graphic designs. Then I bend them to fit my own purposes. When somebody else has solved part of the problem I want to fix, there is no honor in my repeating their work.
There's no honor in taking someone else's hard work and passing it off as your own.
Looking at someone else's website for visual inspiration is a far cry from copying someone else's paper or having a friend do your math homework. Please tell me you see the difference.
"Cheating" does not necessarily mean taking someone else's work. I have cheated before by taking my own work (usually equations and the like) into exams in which I was not supposed to have them. This is technically "cheating," but what it really came down to was that I didn't want to spend hours memorizing information I would only use on one test and then immediately forget.
If you don't like the way a teacher or a school runs things, then don't cheat. Vote with your feet.
Requiring students to memorize has as much to do with the logistics of testing as it does with learning. If you think the school is being lazy and making it easier for them to test at the expense of substantive (non-rote) learning, then why go there?
Even if this is high school, there are still choices. There are people who have gotten into the Ivies with a GED. If you are the right kind of person, you will do substantive work, be recognized and succeed. You can add the drop out, get a GED and do volunteer work step to this plan:
If most people voted with their feet, then schools would get a lot better, fast. Instead, people cheat, which enables the schools to keep up their appearances. You're just as guilty of propagating the paper-reality of testing over actual learning.
> If most people voted with their feet, then schools would get a lot better
You might as well campaign for a general strike. "Vote with your feet" is the age-old leper's bell of market fundamentalists, who deny the reality of tough collective-action problems.
I wish there were some way to confiscate your diploma and force you to live the life of an average high school dropout. But of course, you surely believe that you are exceptional, destined from birth to live out a rags-to-riches tale no matter what. I would like to see just how far your GED and volunteer work would get you.
> you will do substantive work, be recognized and succeed
What reason is there to believe this? As far as American middle-class society is concerned, someone without a high-school diploma is a non-person.
Someone might argue that part of schoolwork is proving that you can do boring routine work. In this respect you only have the long-term incentive of graduating and there is no immediate reward.
So far I have never found an instance in life where doing boring routine work was at all something I wanted to do. The boring routine work I do have to do I constantly try and figure out ways around.
What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get the right answer, then you're responsible for that. If you take a shortcut to get the right answer, then it's not a bad thing until you get to a situation where you refuse to do what it takes to get the right answer.
Given a choice between wasting my time on meaningless schoolwork and cheating and keeping the time to myself, I'll take cheating, and if I went back I'd cheat again.