In the wake of the Atlanta Public Schools system CRCT scandal, I’ve been thinking about cheating.
People cheat for one of two reasons. Either they think they can get away with it, or they know they can get away with it. It’s really that simple.
For the sake of brevity I will refer to these two groups of people as “thinking cheaters” and “knowing cheaters.”
Thinking cheaters are often caught because they’ve come to believe they’re smarter than everyone else. I can feel some compassion for a person who isn’t quite as bright as he thinks he is. It’s a common failing that most of us are guilty of at one time or another.
Thinking cheaters are also less likely to claim their actions are defensible. They typically don’t spend much time making excuses. They don’t whine. They don’t make stuff up. And they don’t seek to drag everyone else down into the hole where they’ve been hiding. I admire this.
When you cheat and get caught, the best course of action is to admit the truth and accept the consequences.
Do that and I am likely to believe you’re not a lost cause. I might eventually be proved wrong, but I’m at least willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Knowing cheaters, on the other hand, do not elicit my compassion. They are opportunists who will do anything, no matter how low-down and dirty, if they know they won’t face consequences. How they came to be this way is a question I can’t answer.
But I do know this. Knowing cheaters deserve our scorn and derision.
For one thing, knowing cheaters are quick to make excuses.
For instance, they cheated because they were very unhappy about something. I’ll call this the “boo-hoo” defense.
Or they cheated because they were under a ton of pressure. This is more difficult to label. Suffice it to say that some part of their anatomy felt like it was caught in a vise.
The only problem with this defense is that they usually confuse their anatomy with their wallets.
Finally, knowing cheaters will often claim they felt powerless for some reason and didn’t know what else to do.
Which brings me to the APS cheating scandal. Erroll Davis, the new head of Atlanta Public Schools, recently said, “I do not accept that a focus on performance causes people to cheat.”
Amen, brother.
Trying to justify cheating on the basis of student performance is as cynical as it gets.
It is also dishonest and potentially criminal depending on what the district attorneys in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties ultimately decide to do. Adults who will hide behind that kind of excuse will hide behind just about anything.
That these adults are teachers and principals is revelatory.
If you’ve ever thought that the crisis in public education has been overstated or blown out of proportion by the media, think again.
These are some of the people who were educating your children.
Rick Diguette lives in Tucker. Reach him at rick.diguette@gmail.com
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