Cheat to Complete

by Hannah Boufford and Mike Gasick

Its a Wednesday night. After getting home late from an away game, you have little energy to
get anything done. While eating dinner, you painfully go through the long list of assignments that
need to be completed for the next day in your head, and the overwhelming list causes you to roll
over on your couch and pray that something magical might happen. You just wish that there was
a way to press a button in your room and all of your homework would be completed.
Your phone buzzes beside you and you realize there may not be a magic button, but you
certainly have magically smart classmates who just happen to have phones. And cameras. The
ability to send pictures via text
Before you realize it, half your homework is done by just looking at pictures on your phones
screen. It takes you half the time to finish the rest of your homework, but then the question pops
into your head Did I just cheat?

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Cheating and Libertyville High School

As technology continues to expand and provide widening opportunities to students, it had become easier for students to come in contact
with homework-solving information. Not only has Google modified
the searching system exponentially, but social media and cell phones
have also improved the ability to access information.
At LHS, many students find themselves with a pile of homework,
gradually decreasing time, and a camera phone or smartphone. As
a result, the ability to send and share homework answers with one
another has increased greatly. Students in a pinch are able to copy
their peers answers to complete their homework in a fraction of a

time they would have spent to consider the questions themselves.

However, when does sharing answers become too much?
A poll released by Common Sense Media in 2009 revealed that
35 percent of teenagers used their phones to cheat and more than 50
percent used the Internet as a cheating tool. Given that technology
had increased considerably in the last six years, and Apple has since
released eight different iPhones, that number has likely gone up.
In a day where accessing the Internet is easier than tying your shoe,
high schoolers are having an easier time completing their homework
without actually having to do the work.

Quick and Easy

The LHS student body has a varying opinion on cheating and sendliterally have no idea how to do.
ing homework. DOI recently conducted a poll over the social media
One anonymous sophomore could relate, when the student stated
sites Facebook and Twitter that prompted participants to answer
in an interview that they once memorized a correct scantron for an
questions about what they considered to be cheating. The survey was
upcoming 53 question test.
available to all grade levels and to anyone who came across the link.
I probably went through a whole notebook rewriting all the letters,
With 41 survey-takers, this poll, while not entirely scientific, provides and I still ended up having to write some on my hand because I just
an insight to the student populations opinion on cheating (see the
could not get the last four, the student recalled laughing. But I
graphic on page 18 for more survey results).
made them into numbers so it wouldnt be as obvious so like A was
One junior survey-taker defined cheating as a way to I think teachers need to one and B was two because then why would I have numbers
save lazy students from failing classes. The open-endwritten on my hand for a [non-math] test?
understand that there The survey further indicated the variety of classes students
ed questions generated a variety of responses on what
students considered and defined as cheating, but many
seen classmates cheat -- the most prominent being math.
are so many resources have
of the answers followed a similar path.
Roughly 90 percent of the surveyed students, after being asked
out there, online with if they consider copying another students homework cheating,
Of the 41 surveyed students, when asked what they
considered to be cheating, all of them checked the
no.
websites that have the answered
provided boxes that DOI considered to be the more
I think teachers need to understand that there are so
prominent forms of cheating: looking at someone elses answers, that students many resources out there, online with websites that have the
test, keeping notes under your desk to copy during an
answers, that students will eventually find them, stated an
exam, and writing information on a desk or arm prior to will eventually find themanonymous senior in a separate interview.
testing. When asked an open-ended question about what - Anonymous sophomore The survey also indicated that many students have seen
other forms of cheating they have seen, some students
their classmates using resources not allowed on exam days,
answers may shock teachers.
noting that their teachers were oblivious to their actions.
An anonymous junior noted that stealing math test answers from
I have never been caught [cheating], the anonymous sophomore
online was a way he goes about cheating.
said.
Honestly, all I have to really do is look up what the title of my
Whether it be writing information on their hands, or having a phone
homework says, and its right there, stated the anonymous student.
in their laps, students find many ways to get around studying the
I know the test is in a few weeks, but some of these questions I
night before an exam.

Collaborate, Dont Copy

While students may not think that sharing their homework answers
is a big deal, teachers disagree.
The LHS handbook defines cheating as misrepresenting another
persons work as ones own, or allowing ones work to be used in
such a manner.
Mr. Tim Roegner, head of the math department, agrees, and views
cheating as any work not completed by the students themselves.
However, he also recognizes that most cheating probably occurs on
homework because it is completed outside of school at home.
You know we certainly would expect kids to help one another,
look at other resources for answers, but to simply copy, word for
word or symbol for symbol, and then turn that in, I mean, we would
view that as cheating, Mr. Roegner commented.
While teachers may have different responses and consequences, the
LHS handbook provides guidelines to how cheating incidents will be

handled.
Any situation where a student is found to be cheating or plagiarizing may result in no credit for the particular assignment and the
LST will be notified with each incidence of cheating, according to
the 2014-2015 handbook. Repeated cheating incidents may result in
a failing grade for the course and/or LST imposed consequences and
may impact participation in school activities/athletics.
Mr. Matt Leone, an earth science teacher, has tried to minimize
occurrences of cheating in his classroom by changing the way
homework is given and graded. He assigns textbook questions as
homework but encourages students to work together and share their
ideas. He then gives an open-note reading quiz, instead of evaluating
the answers themselves.
This way, if you did the homework, and you put the effort into
it, you will do all right on the quiz, he explained. If you just have

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you will do all right on the quiz, he explained. If you just have
someone elses words in front of you and you dont know what they
were putting down, it doesnt do you any good.
However, if Mr. Leone does give an assignment that is to be
completed individually and a student is caught cheating, he dishes
out a zero for the assignment in accordance with the handbook and
requires the student to notify his or her parents of the incidence. The
parents must then notify Mr. Leone that their student has talked to
them. This way, the student is only hurting their grade and learning
experience, and he or she must take ownership of his or her actions.
Mr. Roegner had the same opinion: copying math solutions from
the back of the book or from one another only hinders the students
themselves. It is also hard for teachers to call out when a student has
copied a solution directly, so most math teachers only provide home-

work completion grades rather than grading it based on accuracy.

Im okay with students collaborating together, working on group
projects, stated math teacher Mr. Rick Brenner. But sending homework and copying down, thats cheating.
While each teacher considered copying answers as cheating, they
did understand the appeal to many students. Often times, the LHS
student population finds itself overwhelmed between sports, work,
family, extracurriculars, and school.
Before you know it, its almost midnight, there are four classes of
homework left to do, and your phone just happens to be sitting next
to you.
In this day and age, where anything can be sent anywhere at
anytime, its gonna happen, you cant stop it, Mr. Leone said. Its
quick, it's easy.

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