Found 9th grader has been copying math homework

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh, I copied homework a lot (never on tests though). Graduated first in my class. Went to a competitive college (didn't copy there)...graduated in the top 5% of my bschool class. Now a CPA.

I would call it time effective management.

I did all that without being a cheater.

If this is the worst thing in life I've done, I am okay with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh, I copied homework a lot (never on tests though). Graduated first in my class. Went to a competitive college (didn't copy there)...graduated in the top 5% of my bschool class. Now a CPA.

I would call it time effective management.

I did all that without being a cheater.

If this is the worst thing in life I've done, I am okay with it.

Careful, pp. copying homework is a gateway to homicide

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a situation of "Don't ask, don't tell." As long as my kid is getting good grades on the tests and understands the work, just don't get caught and don't flaunt it in front of me.

Why do you think this is OK? Honesty matters. I'd rather have a kid who flunks out because they don't do homework than a kid who gets an A because she cheats.

I don't think it's okay. But I've also been alive long enough to know that everything isn't black and white. A priest can laugh when someone trips, and a thief can help an old lady across the street. Maybe I'd point out to my kid that it's lame to cheat when she's only getting a B. But maybe that wouldn't be the battle I'd pick.

Okay what exactly would be the battle to picking if CHEATING doesn't qualify? Committing murder? Selling drugs? Will you finally grow a spine and be a PARENT?

I wouldn't compare cheating on homework with killing someone. I AM a parent. I just yelled at my daughter last night. My battle to pick is being disrespectful of other people's feelings and time and home. My battle is hurting someone and not apologizing. My battle is cursing in front of people other than her peers. I would have a problem if it were a test, or the kid whose homework was being copied didn't know about it.

You are free to disagree with me. I won't change your mind. You won't change mine. I will think you're uptight and you will think I lack morals. I don't care what you think of me. You don't care what I think of you. There's nowhere else to go in this discussion.

[Anonymous]

Depends on what your parenting philosophy is. My morals are not elastic and so I would be upset on many levels if I caught my kid copying homework, even if it was only graded for completion. Many parents are ok with it. But then many parents are also ok with lots of things that their kids do that they should not be doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a situation of "Don't ask, don't tell." As long as my kid is getting good grades on the tests and understands the work, just don't get caught and don't flaunt it in front of me.

Why do you think this is OK? Honesty matters. I'd rather have a kid who flunks out because they don't do homework than a kid who gets an A because she cheats.

I don't think it's okay. But I've also been alive long enough to know that everything isn't black and white. A priest can laugh when someone trips, and a thief can help an old lady across the street. Maybe I'd point out to my kid that it's lame to cheat when she's only getting a B. But maybe that wouldn't be the battle I'd pick.

Okay what exactly would be the battle to picking if CHEATING doesn't qualify? Committing murder? Selling drugs? Will you finally grow a spine and be a PARENT?

NP. If you equivocate murder to copying a homework assignment, I think you might have your priorities out of whack.

You can raise a moral, productive citizen who copied a high school geometry assignment.

Seriously.

Follow it through though, people have been known to murder because it gets a competitor out of the way. It's easier than having to do the work to figure out what it takes to out compete the competitor.

Ah, yes. From copying 9th grade geometry homework...it's just one step to committing murder. Watch out people, this girl is a danger to society.

[Anonymous]

I'm following two crazy threads right now. This and paying children for As.

Here, apparently cheating reflects effective time management.

There, getting a B represents failure and a flawed character.


Glad to know there are crazies everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bet all these cheaters would be singing a different tune if their dear Larla lost out in ranking because of a cheater.

Good point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on what your parenting philosophy is. My morals are not elastic and so I would be upset on many levels if I caught my kid copying homework, even if it was only graded for completion. Many parents are ok with it. But then many parents are also ok with lots of things that their kids do that they should not be doing.

And I would say that my parenting philosophy should allow for a child to make his own mistakes without hovering over every assignment. It's not some kind of elasticity of morals, it's parenting for the big picture and trusting that your kid is going to get it right most of the time, but will have a few slip ups because they're kids.

Let's not lose our minds over this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet all these cheaters would be singing a different tune if their dear Larla lost out in ranking because of a cheater.

Good point.

There's no point at all. People who don't mind if their kid copies a homework assignment probably aren't hovering six inches over their kid to even know what a ranking is.

Nice try though, parent copter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet all these cheaters would be singing a different tune if their dear Larla lost out in ranking because of a cheater.

Good point.

There's no point at all. People who don't mind if their kid copies a homework assignment probably aren't hovering six inches over their kid to even know what a ranking is.

Nice try though, parent copter.

Nope. Self centered and entitled people are pretty constant. They don't care who they impact by cheating. But they care a whole lot if they are impacted by it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet all these cheaters would be singing a different tune if their dear Larla lost out in ranking because of a cheater.

Good point.

There's no point at all. People who don't mind if their kid copies a homework assignment probably aren't hovering six inches over their kid to even know what a ranking is.

Nice try though, parent copter.

Nope. Self centered and entitled people are pretty constant. They don't care who they impact by cheating. But they care a whole lot if they are impacted by it.

Do you speak as a cheater? Or as someone who projects from a place of moral superiority? Because as the latter, you probably don't quite understand what you're talking about. But hey, do you if it helps enforce some kind of standard in your household.

[Anonymous]

I can't believe so many people are okay with this. Cheating doesn't have to be a gateway to anything. It's wrong. And it's bad for the cheater, who is not learning to manage her own work or to advocate for herself if there is simply too much of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe so many people are okay with this. Cheating doesn't have to be a gateway to anything. It's wrong. And it's bad for the cheater, who is not learning to manage her own work or to advocate for herself if there is simply too much of it.

This is the most important part of what you've written and the root cause of the problem. You have to ask yourself what kind of system has been created that gives an otherwise good student the incentive to cheat? Parents, especially in this area, have wild expectations for their children and heap on the pressure.

For example, in the forum that was started about maintaining a minimum standard of grades, one parent mentioned that if the student does not complete 100% of her assignments, that her phone will be taken away. What message do you think that child receives? The end goal is a completed assignment to avoid punishment. The incentive is not knowledge, the goal is not to perform to the best of your ability. It's a completed assignment. That creates an obvious disincentive to ask for help or advocate for yourself if there's too much work because the student is trying to avoid being punished.

You all might think you're creating some kind of moral super-beings who would never copy a homework assignment, but I would bet that you're creating the very incentives that would lead your child to cut a few corners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm following two crazy threads right now. This and paying children for As.

Here, apparently cheating reflects effective time management.

There, getting a B represents failure and a flawed character.


Glad to know there are crazies everywhere.

Getting a B when you're capable of doing better reflects laziness and a failure to reach your own full potential. How is that crazy?

And cheating probably is good time management, but it's also not ethical and would result in negative consequences if caught. Whether that's worth it or not, or something that the student can live with is something that I think a teen should be learning to decide for themselves. Homework is relatively low stakes, and at some point these kids will be young adults who need to have developed their own moral compass and value system to live by.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a situation of "Don't ask, don't tell." As long as my kid is getting good grades on the tests and understands the work, just don't get caught and don't flaunt it in front of me.

Parent of a 10th grader here.

OP, are you really OK with posters telling you that this is fine, it's a case of "don't ask, don't tell," you should turn a blind eye, and it doesn't matter as long as your DD does fine on tests etc.?

Your DD is hurting herself. She may be doing fine on tests right now but eventually--if not in this class, in another one; if not this year, then next year-- the shirking of homework WILL catch up with her and she will see the grades start to slip because she didn't do any practice on her own, she only copied. Math is a muscle--you have to exercise it, especially as the subject gets harder over the year. She won't have the foundational knowledge to build on if she doesn't practice. That's what homework is: Practice. Boring, repetitive practice.

And OP, if you ignore the fact she is copying, you are tacitly condoning it. She knows you know she is copying; if you do nothing, you are sending her the message that copying is fine with you.

So -- when she later copies passages from a book or a web site for an English essay or history paper; or when she looks over at someone's chemistry lab notes and copies during a lab; or when she copies homework that IS checked for accuracy and not just for completion -- YOU as the parent will have zero credibility if you try to say then that she should not have done that.

Sure, she can insist to you now that "I wouldn't do this on an essay or anything else, just on this time-wasting math homework that's not even checked. I'm not a cheater!" But she still knows that you saw she copied. If you do nothing, that makes it so much easier for her to fudge the issue when she sees someone else's answer at the next desk during a test, or when that passage she sees on some web site looks so right for her class project.

She needs a serious talking to about why even useless-seeming homework has a purpose and that just because her friends copy and let her copy too, that is not a reason for undermining herself in the long run. She's a freshman and, understandably, does not view things in the long run right now -- which is why you need to wake her up to the fact that this is something you are stopping. Look at the good idea that one PP suggested and have her do this homework in plain sight on the day it's assigned, before others have done it. Is she copying off friends who have the class a day earlier than she does? (That happens, in high school block scheduling.) That's a reason to see her doing it on the blank page with nothing else to help her.

If she complains, "You don't trust me," as kids this age do -- I know -- then you get to reply, "I trusted you until you copied, and now you get to earn trust back by doing your job and not letting others do it for you."

OP, bear in mind that when she gets to college, if she's used to taking the easy way out when it comes to the boring, ungraded stuff, she will be utterly slammed when test time comes. And if she cheats -- well, my friend who's a college professor says that honor code discipline is much, much tougher than it used to be.

Yeah, that's extrapolating a long way into the future for a high school freshman, but you have to think about whether you as the parent are going to let her start high school like this. She will continue in the way she begins, and if she begins with an attitude of "it doesn't matter and everyone copies," then YOU lose any ability to say, "You should not do what 'everyone' does."

The DCUM "I did it and was fine" crowd will tell you otherwise. Are you going to do what you know you need to do, and nip this right now, or are you going to let her buy into that belief that "It's only busywork so I can lie about whether I did it myself; only grades matter"?