Cheetahs Never Prosper!

No, I am not planning on spending this time talking about a feline that lives out on the Savannah.  I am actually going to talk about a group of people who I think are absolutely despicable, and I cannot believe what they do.  This group is cheaters.

Recently I’ve had some encounters with people who have cheated.  I cannot believe their gall.  It is unfair that people cheat, on anything and everything, and that nearly no one gets caught.  Where is justice?  I listen in class, take notes, do my assignments, study, and then these people get the same test score as me, for having done absolutely no work.  These people goof off in class, never listen, and have awful grades.  I hope that teachers are able to catch the “miraculous” test scores that these crummy students get.  Why would it look suspicious to have a student get an A on a test, when the day before they hadn’t turned in any complete homework?  It just isn’t right.

Then, to make it worse, people are such blatant cheaters.  It isn’t like they try to be subtle about it.  Do people honestly think that if they say they’ll hate me forever if I don’t tell them the answer that I’ll actually tell them?  Or, here’s my personal favorite, “I’ll give you $5 if you’ll tell me the answer.” Don’t people know me by now?  I guess not, because people still do it a lot.  I could be a millionaire if I went along, though.

It seems warped to me.  If you really wanted those good grades, you would study and try.  Yet, they don’t, and then they try to blame it on everyone else.  It really isn’t the teacher’s fault, the parent’s fault (well, sometimes it is, if they encourage it), or the friend’s fault.  It’s the lazy student’s fault.  They want something for nothing, and no one is doing any favors to help someone cheat.

The other day, I was studying for a geography test.  We had to label a map, from memory, and I was studying off of a completed map of Europe.  This girl started to beg me to let her use the map on her test.  She promised that nothing would happen, and that if I didn’t let her use it, she would fail.  I didn’t let her, and she was giving me the evil eye during the test, but it didn’t have any affect on me, since I hadn’t done anything wrong.  Yet, so many times people cave in.  They let them use their notes, they whisper them the answer, or they let them see their test.  Whatever it is, it’s wrong.  The person who facilitates cheating is just as much to blame as the person who actually cheats.  

How does cheating affect a person?  Maybe I’m a different breed of cat, but I would feel VERY guilty about cheating.  I wouldn’t be able to stand myself.  I would cry and be absolutely depressed until I did something to make up for it.  If I did cheat, it would probably kill me so much that I would turn myself in.  So, how do our classmates feel about it? Do they go through guilt complexes and completely shut down?  Obviously not, or it wouldn’t happen so often.  I can’t figure out how people can get to the point that they don’t feel any regret for the things they’ve done.  Maybe it’s one of those examples where you feel that it isn’t too bad or no one will know about it.  People must’ve gotten to the point that they can completely fool themselves into thinking that what they’re doing is okay.  It isn’t, though.

So, what are we decent, hard-working students to do?  Eliminate cheating.  First of all, don’t be a cheater.  Don’t sneak in notes or ask people for help.  If we’re the ones guilty of it, we can’t help others.  Second, don’t help other people.  It doesn’t matter if your best friend begs you to tell them the answer.  If they do something like that, they aren’t really your friend.   Sorry to be blunt, but they’re using you.  Real friends just don’t do things like that.  Then, don’t listen to false promises.  There are the oldies, but goodies, “You’ll be my best friend forever” or “If you really are my friend, you’d help me.”  These things are not true.  People who say things like that are the ones that will forget about you as soon as you walk out of the class.  I believe the final step to rooting out cheaters is this: if it happens a lot, tell the teacher.  Put a stop to it.  If we don’t stand up, it will always continue.  They will get better and better at getting away with things.  It doesn’t do them any favors.  At some point, they’re going to hit a time when they can’t cheat the system anymore.  They’ll have to face the cold, hard facts of life, and it’s going to be a killer reality check.  If we stop their cheating ways now, though, these people will thank us later.  So, stand up to the cheaters!  Don’t let them boss or push you around.  Realize what you’re doing, or helping others do, is very wrong.  Fix the mistakes that you’ve made, and do better in the future.  Once again, remember, “Cheaters never prosper!”