A classful of plagiarized papers, two stolen dresses. These are, undoubtedly, not the only occurrences of dishonesty at CHS to ever have happened recently. However, I find it disturbing that such things have happened at all.
How can one cheat a lab report without realizing that it only gets everyone in trouble? Or stealing clothing; how can one not care that every CHS students’ image is now tarnished as well, as a result of their individual actions?
The answer is simple. People like that in reality don’t care. How depressing.
There will never be a time when no one has even the slightest urge to cut corners. That’s just how it goes. Students speak of pressure, stress, sleep deprivation. But, from age six or seven on, we are also taught early-on that we cannot copy somebody’s test, that it’s bad if we steal our classmate’s belongings, and that if we break something, we should not lie about it. Lying, cheating, stealing; they are, in essence, the trio of crimes we were warned away from as children.
The same things translate smoothly as we grow older: no longer involving petty arguments between children, but real offenses that have real repercussions that not only affect those involved, but others as well, by association.
It is those effects that touch the entire community that I believe those that lie, cheat, and steal, cannot comprehend. It is those who cannot see beyond themselves that have no scruples taking anything from anyone else. How do we stop them when they have no qualms with anything they do, anyway?
The issue that I see here is that our society no longer has many principles regarding dishonesty. In this society, we are taught that he who wins, wins, no matter the cost.
In a world where the stakes keep growing, we all have so much more to lose, we think. Conversely, if we win, we think we’ll win big. This is what we see here. Some will do anything for that grand prize.
The CHS community is no exception. It is a microcosm of the larger world that lies beyond its front doors, and out there, the stakes are even higher. It might be a stolen dress from a charity event here. (That in itself, in this case, was indeed a felony.) However, ten years from now, will it be more than a dress? Will it be more serious than a lab report?
Yes, it will be, if we don’t do something now.
I believe that the issue is not what many would like to pass the problem off as: stress. It is simple selfishness and ignorance. Yes, CHS students are indeed under a tremendous amount of pressure; many juggle multiple AP or honors classes, participate in loads of extracurricular activities, and still manage to get sleep at night.
And yet, though I believe that the demands to maintain such precarious perfection do provide the temptation to plagiarize and steal, that really isn’t the problem.
The problem is that some students aren’t stopping to think that they might be making someone else’s life worse through their own short-sightedness. It is a pity—and a bit of a scare—to think that all of us, even the dishonest ones among us, will one day be in the world, perhaps in greater positions of influence. Unless we put an end to this win-lose mindset, we will never progress. But to progress, we also have to get over ourselves first.
