When I was a classroom teacher, I would try to build in a few field trips each semester just to keep things fresh and interesting. One of my favorites was the trip to Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market.
I was a journalism teacher; I’d take kids to the Market and assign them the task of writing an essay for a travel magazine.
One student’s essay didn’t sound right, so I typed the first sentence into Google. Turns out, this student had simply cut-and-pasted a story about Pike Place Market from the local newspaper website. So, I wrote the url on the top of her paper, and gave her a zero.
I’m kicking myself now. What a shamefully uncreative response that was!
* * *
I was reminded of this story after reading an essay by Alfie Kohn titled, “Who’s Cheating Whom?” He gives a thorough examination of the subject of cheating in schools. Here’s one passage that got my attention:
Interestingly, one of the mostly forgotten findings from that old Teachers College study was that “progressive school experiences are less conducive to deception than conventional school experiences”—a result that persisted even after the researchers controlled for age, IQ, and family background. In fact, the more time students spent in either a progressive school or a traditional school, the greater the difference between the two in terms of cheating.
I thought about how cheating is handled at PSCS and it occurred to me: I’ve never heard of an incident of cheating there. That doesn’t mean it has never happened. But it’s hard to imagine how it would come about.
First, the words “Practice Integrity” are written in five-inch letters on the wall of the commons. (And unlike the old boarding school cliché, the words are not written in Latin and emblazoned on a school crest. They’re written on the wall, in English.) One of the primary goals of the program—even more important than transmitting academic content to students—is to help them internalize a nuanced understanding of what those words mean in terms of their daily living.
In addition, every student who signs up for a class does so voluntarily. At the end of the term, students do not receive any grades. So instead of focusing on how to game the system or how to get an easy A, they focus on learning. They spend their time at school developing themselves as human beings and pursuing activities that bring them joy.
In that environment, why would anyone bother cheating?
* * *
Sometimes I think about what I would do if I were ever to return as a classroom teacher in a traditional school. In a situation like the kid who cheated on the Pike Place Market essay, I think I would have a conversation something like this.
ME: “I noticed that you copied this essay off the Internet. I’m assuming you did that because 1) you didn’t see value in the assignment 2) your parents will get upset if you don’t get an A and 3) you have a very busy life filled with assignments from other classes, extra-curricular activities, and normal social pressures of being a teenager.”
KID: “That pretty much sums it up, yes.”
ME: “How long do you think it would have taken you to write this essay?”
KID: “I don’t know, maybe 45 minutes. Maybe an hour.”
ME: “Here’s your new assignment. Identify something that you’re interested in doing or learning about. Then spend an hour on it tonight. The only requirement is that is has to be something that you think is really interesting and exciting. Then, tomorrow you have to come to class and tell us about it.”
KID: “Wait, are you serious?”
Wouldn’t that be great? One thing is for sure: she wouldn’t cheat.
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