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Jewish World Review March 29, 2001/ 5 Nissan, 5761
Marianne M. Jennings
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
AT Mountain Pointe High School, located in what environmentalists and
other arsonists refer to as the urban sprawl of Phoenix, 40 students in
sophomore honors English classes created a hornet's nest when they developed
a Web site for cheating. The Web site contained answers to study packets and
other materials generally gleaned through the sweat of the high school brow.
Many of the students in the class went to now-defunct www.hipposandrhinos.com
and copied their homework courtesy of budding Web masters who could not
fathom the notion of individual effort.
When the principal learned of the dishonesty, he sentenced the 40 lads
and lassies involved to 18 hours of community service. The school newspaper
published an article entitled, "Web of deception" under a pseudonym. The
article stated that 80-90 % of the students, "plagiarized, copied, posted and
declared they can do as they wish." Pseudonym was right - the students
cheated and got off too easily.
Enter the parents from this area of upper middle SUVs. One parent is
outraged because the newspaper article impugns the integrity of her child.
The child's integrity has it coming. Another parent objects because she was
not told of the problem before the newspaper article was published. As if
all students in the school were not aware of the scandal without the
newspaper article?
But the most popular indignation stems from the theory that this was not
cheating. One father's take, "I think it's ingenious. It's the wave of the
future." One young man rationalized, "If it was cheating, it would have been
something where the teacher told us we couldn't work together." He has
thrown down the gauntlet, "Define cheating and then we'll talk."
The parents have appealed the principal's findings and punishment to the
governing board. Their appeal rests on claims of due process, the newspaper
article, and the increasingly popular notion that this was not cheating.
Fault the enforcer, not those who violate the rules. Jump on how the
violation is handled, but never acknowledge that violation. Blame those who
condemn bad acts, not the bad actors. Educators finally do something
remotely sensible and parents hammer them.
Not only have these parents sanctioned what was clearly wrong behavior,
they have all taught their children that even when you break the rules, hurl
about sufficient outrage and indignation to get off the hook. Our children
may be a mess, but they are the acorns. The trees have had a great deal to
do with their warped value systems. Children cheat because their parents
sanction circumstantial ethics and offer technological rationalization.
Jonathan Lebed, the 15-year-old who posted false Internet messages about
stocks he owned so as to bamboozle hopeful souls into buying his inflated
shares, is another study in the acorns corrupt trees produce. He would buy,
lie and sell high. He made $800,000 through fraud (actually, he walked away
with only $500,000 - the SEC haggled with the family to extract the rest as a
fine). When the SEC caught Master Jonathan, his father, Greg Lebed, said, "
I'm proud of my son. It's not like he was out stealing the hubcaps off cars
or peddling drugs to the neighbors." Sure, six-figure fraud over the
Internet is elegant, not your lower middle class street crime.
Parents re-label conduct or blame it on the sheer presence of technology.
Copying answers from the Internet is not cheating, it's "innovative" and the
"wave of the future." Napster is not copyright infringement, it's
peer-to-peer file sharing. Jonathan Lebed, as the New York Times explained,
simply did what everyone else does in the market -- manipulate stock prices.
The Internet just makes it so easy - who can resist?
The parents and the Times fail to see the long-term implications of such
youthful scofflaws. The system breaks. Grades are meaningless when they
have no correlation to effort or results. Cynicism envelops a market fraught
with cheaters and wary investors back away from the vehicle that drives
capitalism.
Parental technological rationalization has one more flaw in its logic. These
kids all knew they were acting dishonestly. Little Jonny used 4 different
screen names to disguise his identity as he pumped and dumped. Not one of
the honors English students thought to ask their teacher if copying from the
Web site was permitted. When their teacher got wind of the Web site, the
students dismantled it instantly, while they were still in school and in
between class periods of honors English. The kids knew in their hearts that
they were cheating. Now if we could just convince their proud parents of the
03/23/01: The melt down of the academy
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