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Is Cheating Okay? Sure It Is!

      When discussing the problems that plague most any high school, it is likely that the word "cheating" will come up. Both teachers and smartass students who feel that everybody wants to bask in the glory of their work will agree: cheating needs to be stopped. Educators have and are always attempting to prevent any possible method of cheating used by the students. However, in all this fiasco, has anybody stopped to see the benefits of cheating? Just because a person does not do his own work does not mean that he is not prepared for the world. In fact, a good cheater is even more prepared to deal with the real world than the honest student. We don't live in a happy socialist utopia where everyone helps everyone world. Business is cut-throat and if you want to survive, you have to do anything it takes to get where you want to get. It has been like that since the dawn of life on earth. 

      Those of you who feel that you need to protect your work will need to prepare for the real world, where people WILL take your things and make money off of them. Works of art, literature, and almost anything else are influenced by something else. A person's mind takes in the things around him to combine and produce something new. That's what learning is all about. Learning from other people. So technically, all art is a result of previous art. All literature is a result of previous literature. All knowledge is a result of previous knowledge. In that manner, the battle against cheating is flawed. Why is it wrong that you would be able to to use things that are previously made and mold them into something that you like? Full plagiarism itself is not a bad thing. It is a persons choice to learn, and it is the teachers job to grade the paper. If a student feels that he is preparing himself better for reality by not writing that paper, or not answering that question by himself, then that is the student's choice. A student who looks over another's shoulder to get an answer is a student who just learned the answer to the question. In fact, the student will probably remember the answer even better due to the fact that he/she learned from another student's answer form. Isn't that a primary objective in teaching: for the students to learn?

      When asked about cheating, most authorities will state that it is "morally" or "ethically" wrong. Although this seems like a dead-end for those trying to justify cheating, it really is not. Ask yourself, "who's morals are we talking about?" Sure, cheating is wrong if you limit yourself to the Judeo-Christian system of thought. However, that should be the choice of the student. It is not the job of any public school or public institution to preach religious values. Other religions may feel differently on the use of one material by many people. Rather than see it capitalistically as "stealing", other cultures may see it as "sharing". And is it not capitalism that warrants the "survival of the fittest" attitude? If you can cheat... and cheat well mind you, then that is good according to capitalism. Today's system is hypocritical. 

      An adequate analysis of the ethics behind cheating involve one critical aspect: what does it mean to cheat? Some would say that cheating means gaining an unfair advantage over other students. But what is an unfair advantage? If student A studies for a test and student B does not, is student A cheating? Of course not, because it is not unfair: student B very well could have studied. So what is so different from student A looking at his brother's test from the previous year, knowing that the same test would be used again for him? Student B could also see that test given he had the motivation - just like he could have studied given he had the motivation to do so. Thus, the "unfair advantage" clause is complete bullshit. 

      Measures that attempt to prevent cheating have serious problems. First of all, these measures waste the time of the teachers who have to stare to see if people are looking at other's tests. Looking at someone else's test is an act that anyone can do, thus making it fair mind you. Teachers also waste their time comparing homework for similar answers. They also waste the time of the students who are constantly subjected to the endless repetition of explanations of how they are to do their own work. Even worse, teachers have to speculate as to whether a student actually did cheat. I once had to spend one hour convincing a teacher that I did not plagiarize (I in fact hadn't) just because I used the world "notoriety" and he thought I couldn't have possibly used such an "advanced" word. Such measures may also violate the legal rights of students whose work is being used without their explicit permission for a cause they probably do not support. A perfect example of that is turnitin.com (see issue 2), which violates implied copyrights on papers. How dare turnitin.com cause the prohibition of my using MY OWN paper in two different classes? Even those of you who do not understand my logic because you are too caught up with your own "morals" have to agree with that point. The thing is, today's system is fundamentally contradictory. In business, it preaches everything that cheating entails, but when it comes to school, suddenly cheating is wrong because "morals" say they are.

- LSD and Absolute-Zero 

A Few Words on Curfew 

GET RID OF IT!!!

      It is not an uncommon practice that parents should have a curfew on their children. Kids have to be home by this time on weekdays, by that time on weekends, and so on. Well, for those of you left in the dark, the Beverly Hills Police Department also has a curfew. Anybody under the age of 18 who is left outside after 10:00 PM, can be stopped by the 
police and possibly brought home. Although curfew states it is to prevent loitering, it gives the officer the right to interrogate anyone under the age of 18 after 10 PM. However logical curfew may seem to parents, it really is not. Who is the government to mandate a curfew? Curfew denies children some of their most basic rights. If a person under the age of 18 would like to see a late-night movie with their friends, the police can (and knowing the Beverly hills police department, most likely will) harass them for it. If somebody under the age of 18 would like to take their business to some of the many fine stores and shops that we have here in Beverly Hills after 10:00 PM, they can't do that.

      Albeit, the negative effect on businesses, is not THAT tremendous, there still is one. Curfew is fundamentally flawed. Simply put, why would somebody not be allowed to be outside after 10:00 PM? How can an officer have the right to issue a citation to someone just because he/she is hanging out with some friends after 10 PM? Is it because the police are so distrustful of the children of this city, so as to treat all of them as suspected criminals? Is it because they feel that the residents of Beverly Hills are being done a favor? Clearly, there is nobody being done a favor. Minors will not enjoy being questioned and perhaps even searched by a police officer because they are simply "hanging out". Parents, on the other hand, will also not enjoy having their child brought home to them in a police car, rather than a friend's car. Curfew is not only bad because it accomplishes nothing, wastes the time of the police, and scares parents. No, curfew also imposes the cultural values of some people upon everybody. Not every culture sees the night as an evil time where monsters float around eating people and delinquent children drink beer and destroy cars. Some cultures believe that children who prove themselves responsible should be let out until perhaps 12:00 PM or later. An 11:00 PM curfew violates the beliefs of those cultures and replaces them with the beliefs of another. The last time I checked, America was about celebrating the differences in each of our cultures. All in all, everything is wrong with curfew and nothing is right with it.

- Lithium 

Insight Into Why High School Sucks 

      High School is pretty much pointless. To see what I mean by that,  Let's first look at how it works: first you memorize some facts you'll never use, then you get a cool little letter on a "report card", then you forget all of it. It's biased towards the people with the best short term memories and it's based on the people who think the shit they're learning actually matters.

      I can see a bit past all of this and realize that high school may help get me a better job working for someone else. And of course this job would use none of the information that I "learned" in high school. How often am I going to need to know the sector length of a 72° central angle? What about how to decide what conic section I just created? Never.

      Then there's SO many people who did poorly in school but turned out "successful" in life. The one thing people with (self-made) wealth have in common is that they are smart. I know I'm smart, so I start to think "Who needs all this shit when I can still end up making money anyway?"

      The thing is, just seeing all this bullshit makes me despise the whole system and not really care about trying to go with it. Well, maybe someday I will get to learn stuff that I can actually use in life. I'd like to think that this day will be my first day of college.

- The Pelican 

A Rebuttal to "Why High School Sucks" 

      High School is more than just about learning, it's about setting a foundation for social, physical, and mental development. Even if students don't learn anything "useful" in the real world, they still gain a foundation for learning. What I mean by this is that high school prepares students for the challenges that face the students in college. High School teaches discipline and allows students to have friendships and relationships.

      With that said, I think that there definitely are classes offered at Beverly that do have real world applications. This year I feel very content with my schedule and I feel that most of the courses I am taking are helping me in life and I either will, or currently am using the material I am learning in the classes in my own life's endeavors. Now calculus and physics might not help many people in the real world, but personally, I am using concepts I learn in class on projects I am working on out of school. I enjoy learning when I benefit from the knowledge. I think it comes down to what classes someone is taking. It is very important to choose (if you can) classes that seem interesting to the you. Beverly has a lot of classes to choose from and even though I agree with the Pelican that the actual material taught in some classes does not have real-world applications, many classes do in fact offer curriculum that is useful in its most direct sense (direct as opposed to indirect uses such as the "building a foundation for college" as mentioned above).

- Zack Anderson