Why Cheating is Harmful to Kids' Creativity and How Technologies Can Help Prevent It
Sponsored Post Written By: Margaryta Kremneva from Unicheck
Were you ever told as a kid that
cheating was wrong? Have you ever cheated? If the answer is no, then you’re in the small
minority: surveys among college students show that at least 86% admit to having
cheated in school, quite an overwhelming number of people doing something
everyone knows
to be wrong. However, do they realize why it’s wrong?
Why is cheating bad for children (and for everyone else)
A 2011 study showed a dramatic increase in
cheating rates over the previous ten years, with 88% of the cases owing it in
some way to the Internet and computers.
An academic cheating fact sheet
from Stanford
states, “many students feel that their individual honesty in academic endeavors will not affect
anyone else”. There’s an old fashioned argument about this: would
you like your children to be operated on by a doctor who’s cheated on their
exam? The Cheating Fact sheet reinforces this notion with this entry: “Cheating
does not end at graduation. For example, resume fraud is a serious issue for
employers concerned about the level of integrity of new employees.”
But one could argue, that this only applies to
professional education, so why not let kindergarteners cheat? The problem is
the habit:
the “normality” of cheating will persist once the child starts down this path
at any age. Why bother taking the difficult road of learning and making effort
when you know you can cheat your way through it? Consider these statistics
about younger cheaters: “Cheating may begin in elementary school when children
break or bend the rules to win competitive games against classmates. It peaks
during high school when about 75% of students admit to some sort of academic
misgivings. Research about cheating among middle school children (Ages 12-14)
reveals that: There is an increased motivation to cheat because there is more
emphasis on grades; Even those students who say it’s wrong, cheat; If the goal
is to get a good grade, they will cheat. According to one recent survey of
middle schoolers, 2/3 of respondents reported cheating on exams, while 9/10
reported copying another's homework.” What this means is that children,
from a young age, start focusing on the grade over knowledge, which makes the whole
purpose of education obsolete.
In fact, it harms children in more ways than
one. On the one hand, they cheat their way out of actually learning the information,
but more importantly, cheating replaces the skill of learning, one
of the most valuable assets in today’s rapidly changing job landscape. With the
world changing so fast, preparing children for a future life is a daunting task
for a parent, and teaching them to learn and adapt is one of the safest bets.
You take the knowledge out of education and the skill of acquiring it – and
children end up graduating right into the difficult ever-lasting struggle for a
job.
Children are naturally curious and able to
learn, a lot of the basic intellectual capabilities are developed early.
Cheating strikes a blow to this natural curiosity and hurts the child’s self-confidence
and faith in their ability to learn. Instead of tackling a challenging task on
their own, with creativity and drive, a child gives up on it, and over time
this affects their confidence such they could have solved it on their own. A
somewhat cheeky attitude can help people be bold enough to try and, possibly,
where others give up without even trying.
Creativity is also at stake here, because
solving problems requires not only knowledge but also the flexibility of the mind and analytical
thinking. Where ethical learning helps a child, and later a student,
to become accustomed to analyzing problems, looking for different solutions and
being intellectually
creative and resourceful, cheating removes the motivation to think outside the
box or go through the toilsome thinking process at all. Plagiarism
is an especially toxic type of cheating in that regard. If independent thinking
doesn’t sound like something valuable to you on its own, consider that complex problem
solving, creativity and independent critical thinking are consistently named
among the top skills that will be valued by employers.
How do we fight cheating?
A very important component to a cheating-free
world is, of course, the upbringing. As much as kindergarten and school
teachers might try, in the end, the influence of the family plays a huge role in what
a child considers right and wrong: perhaps, it would be wise for many parents
to pay special attention to educating their children about why
cheating is bad for them.
Additionally, technology can be used not only
by cheaters but also by those fighting cheating. Electronic testing systems, surveillance
during tests are supposed to handle the cheating on exams. What about the most
harmful type of cheating: plagiarism?
Plagiarism hurts critical thinking skills and creativity
more than other types of cheating. Many universities are aware of the problem
and use plagiarism-checkers
to ensure students haven’t cheated, so it’s very fortunate that developers are
trying to provide their services in the most affordable way, joining the fight
against plagiarism. However, as much as universities try, it will be incredibly
difficult to stop a person who’s been cheating, since school from plagiarizing
their academic papers. In fact, it might even be too late to teach them not to:
having grown up relying on plagiarism, a kid simply skips learning how to do it
the right way. With this in mind, it would be wise to prevent children from developing
the very habit of plagiarizing from a young age.
Luckily enough, many of the plagiarism-checkers
are integrated with other modern educational tools like Google Classroom, for example, Unicheck’s plagiarism checker. This checker’s advantages include
a truly exceptional pricing combined with cutting edge technology and a smooth
user experience. 95% of the checker’s features are available free of charge.
The company believes that eradicating plagiarism is a worthy cause, so a lot of
the decisions are made with the comfort of users in mind.
As part of this socially responsible effort, Unicheck implemented the integration with Google Classroom hoping to encourage educators to pay the problem the level of attention it so requires. Setting up the integration is a very straightforward process, so anyone who uses Google Classroom should make sure to check it out for themselves.
Setting the service up in a Unicheck account takes only five simple steps:
1.
Create the title for your integration.
2. Log
in with your School’s Google account.
3.
Choose whether to create the integration for all of your courses or only
specific ones.
4. Configure reports settings.
5.
Configure the global plagiarism tools settings.
Considering that cheating starts long before kids go off to the university, educators who work with younger children should prioritize preventing plagiarism among their young students for the sake of their creativity and future success. Perhaps, using plagiarism checkers is one way to do it, especially when it integrates well with other learning systems. Think outside the box and help your students learn to do the same!
