The school where cheating does not exist

I am always amused when I read the annual surveys of National Merit Scholars and others and their responses when they are asked if they have ever cheated in school. Usually, more than 50 percent say they have and editorial writers and columnists begin decrying the decline of morals in America.
However, if they had surveyed scholars 10, 20, 30, or even 100 years ago, odds are the percentages would not have been much different.
I am not what I would call a scholar, but about 15 years ago I was asked to be the speaker at the Academic Assembly at Lamar Middle School. I decided to tell the tale of the two times I cheated when I was attending East Newton High School, both times during my freshman year.
I was never good at algebra or science, so those were the classes in which I made my efforts at cheating. In Joe Brown's algebra class, I sat behind a sophomore cheerleader. Naturally, I assumed she was a sophomore, she must know more about algebra than I did, so I copied off her paper, cleverly changing a couple of answers so I would not be caught. I wish someone would have told me that the reason this sophomore cheerleader was in the class was because she had failed it so miserably the previous year.
That was the last time I cheated in algebra. I struggled to a C and felt much better about myself afterward.
One of my favorite classes during my freshman year was Mr. Bill Keith's physical science class. I loved the class because he was a tremendous teacher, but I did not do well in it because I just never have been good at science.
Fortunately, I had a study hall sixth hour and physical science seventh hour, so with a major test looming before me, I decided to make another effort at cheating. I detailed to the students at Lamar Middle School how I decided to write possible answers to test questions on the bottom of my shoes. First, I wrote a few words to test my plan, then walked across the study hall to make sure the words could withstand normal walking. The next step was to see how quickly the evidence could be erased if Mr. Keith caught on to my plan. Happily, I discovered that a quick, vigorous rubbing of my shoes across the floor wiped out the writing. I was ready to begin my insidious plan.
I wrote all the possible answers I could think of on the shoe, then I remembered that we were going to have to draw a diagram of a steam engine. Unfortunately, I had no room remaining on the bottom of my shoes. Then inspiration struck. I told the middle schoolers about how I pulled up my pants leg, and drew a steam engine, based on the diagram in the textbook, on my leg. I was ready for the test.
Things did not work out quite as well as I planned. Mr. Keith somehow did not pick a single question for which I had an answer on my shoe. Then he double-crossed me and had us draw a turbine engine instead of a steam engine. I flunked the test.
The moral of the story, I told the Lamar middle schoolers, was that cheaters do not win, and that the reason the students were being honored was because they had not given in to that temptation.
I thought it was a great speech and two days later, as I was taking photos at a high school track meet, one of the eighth graders to whom I had spoken approached me and said, "Mr. Turner, I want to thank you for that speech. It was great."
Naturally, my head was swollen. "You're welcome," I responded.
The boy continued, "I put the answers to a test today on the bottom of my shoes and I got an A. That's a great idea."
I was at a loss for a response.
***
Every year, my classes do an essay on cheating after a class discussion. I rarely have more than two or three out of my 120-plus students who say they have not tried cheating. I don't get the idea, however, that there is any cheating epidemic going on.
One year when I was teaching at Diamond Middle School, there was a brief flurry of cheating activity and the hard-working students on our school newspaper, "The Diamond Daily," (it came out every couple of weeks, but we updated it daily on the Wildcat Central website) decided to do a story on it. In that same issue, one eighth grade girl wrote a column about a subject on which she felt passionately, sexual harassment. This young girl had been a victim of that insidious form of behavior and wanted to write about it. I told her I would definitely need to go over her column when she was finished. I did, and I was impressed. It was insightful and not preachy, and I saw nothing controversial about it...which shows how much I know.
It was late in the year and this was the first time we had ever put anything in the "Diamond Daily" about so-called negative topics. We had previously written story after story about the many positive things that students and faculty members were doing. Even that edition was overwhelmingly positive.
The staff was proud of the paper and we were hearing good things about it from both the student body and the teachers. However, our new superintendent at the time, was shocked by the content. I was teaching a class in my trailer when he knocked at the door and asked me to step outside.
He very quickly let me know that there is no cheating problem at Diamond because no cheating takes place there. Then he really lowered the boom on the subject of sexual harassment, letting me know the eighth grade girl's article should never have appeared in the newspaper. "We do not have sexual harassment in my schools," he said emphatically. "I will not allow it."
As you can imagine, since the students inside the classroom heard his every word, it didn't take much time for the word to spread around the school that there was no cheating and no sexual harassment.
The superintendent's tirade put a damper on the newspaper staff. It was never the same that year, though the kids did their best.
***
Thoughts of the Utopian school where cheating and sexual harassment do not exist came flowing back to me today as the Journalism Club at South Middle School prepares to publish the first issue of "South Spotlight." The newspaper, which will be published monthly for the remainder of the school year (we also have regular updates on our website, Room 210) features no articles on cheating or sexual harassment, but it does have some great article and photos, courtesy of a hard-working group of seventh and eighth graders. I am proud of their efforts.
And I am happy to be in a school district where we are able to meet the challenges of cheating and sexual harassment because we acknowledge that they do exist, and we do our best to keep either from happening. No, we are not 100 percent successful, but when you face a problem head-on, more often than not, you are able to handle that problem.