I posed a question to start class yesterday: Why are y’all such cheaters?
(To preface this illustration, let me say that I don’t have a known cheating problem, it was just a comical way to provoke the kids.)
The first word of the question was essential. I didn’t ask how do you cheat?—though the answers to that question would make my job a lot easier! I asked why? As in, what motives? What circumstances and attitudes of the heart make cheating a viable option?
Hands shot up across the room.
One student started off with an easy one: Laziness. Laziness leads to procrastination which leads to sitting at home at 11:30pm the night before a 5-page paper is due and feeling trapped so that copying and pasting from somewhere else feels like the only way out.
Or, sometimes we just don’t want to think. Because thinking is hard. So we flip to the back of the math textbook, copy the homework answers, and call it a day (all very hypothetically speaking, of course).
Another student mentioned pressure: pressure from parents to get good grades, pressure from peers—especially for high-achieving students to maintain their perfect records, pressure from the future which seems to hinge on the score of every test and paper.
In fact, well-meaning parents can increase the pressure with promised rewards for all As, like a big trip or a car. In that scenario, “forfeiting the prize” vs. “cheating just this once” becomes a very real internal struggle.
Several others mentioned competition. The classroom often becomes a place to jockey for first, and a competitive edge can coax students into transgressing their integrity. After all, I’ve never heard of someone cheating in order to lose—but I know plenty who have cheated in order to win.
When we got to the root, we agreed together most of these stem from fear—fear of failing, fear of the teacher, fear of what parents will say, fear of fellow students, fear of inadequacy.
Ultimately, the person who cheats is acting on the belief that I am not enough.
At this very point, students need to hear this from us: But you are.
As a teacher, I don’t want to interact with a glamorized or filtered version of a student, and I really don’t care what Google or ChatGPT thinks. I don’t want to have a relationship with an augmented version of my students. I want to know my students—flaws and all.
The classroom is a sacred space—a safe space—where a teacher expects to encounter the unfinished, the imperfect, the constantly falling short. It is a place where students are met with grace and truth.
The classroom is not a gathering of perfected, radiantly glorified beings. It is a place where teacher takes students underwing, turns them toward the glory of the one who is Good and True, and gently comforts, “. . . and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).
Kitchen Cheat-code.
We are all looking for shortcuts in the kitchen, and any way we can save time is a welcome help. Here’s the kitchen secret you can’t miss:
Always make a double recipe.
Leftovers are the cheat-code of the kitchen. Think about it, you could go through the process of making chicken pot pie (quite the endeavor if you make it from scratch). In the end, you’ve made one pie, eaten one pie. Night over.
Or, you could double the recipe—requiring minimal extra prep, cook two pies, eat one. Night over. Next day, guess what? You’ve still got one pie.
Leftovers make fantastic lunches and the quickest dinners ever.
So, make a commitment never to waste your effort by cooking just one portion again. Double up and save the extra, and you’ll feel like you are gaming the system.