Cheating

It’s about time I got around to writing about this topic, now that I’m past the initial shock and anger that I had dealt with during the last two weeks of the last term at school. I am not sure whether I was more surprised that 75% of my students tried to cheat on their test or that I had such a strong emotional reaction to it. As you know, in the US, individual achievement is highly valued, and cheating (especially plagiarism) is strictly punished, resulting in a zero on a test or even suspension from school. As we grow up in the school, we find ourselves competing with the other students in the class for that highly prestigious “top 10” distinction at graduation. It doesn’t serve our own interests to help someone else on a test, especially when the risks are so high. That sense of individuality and value of an honest grade is not present in my school, or for that matter in any school I’ve heard about from other PCVs. The implements of cheating range from a list of vocabulary words the students didn’t think were important enough to study at home (about 60 words for a 10 week period), “inconspicuously” placed in the students lap or under their test, to outright questions: “What’s the answer to number 7?” asked (not even quietly) across the room. Their apparent openness in cheating, sometimes abandoning any attempt whatever to hide it, led me to believe they must not think that it is wrong. As this was my first experience of giving a test in Kazakhstan, I tried my best to sit back and see how my counterpart handles the situation, but inside I was absolutely burning up. She seemed not to notice, or really care that her students didn’t prepare for the test that was announced two weeks in advance. I wanted to scream, “Zeros for all of you!” rip up the tests, and kick everyone out of the classroom, but instead I walked around the room calmly collecting the cheat sheets while telling them, “Sahm delaem” (trying to remain calm) “do it by yourself.”

I had read during training that cheating is a common issue that education-PCVs encounter, and that it primarily results from one of the biggest cultural differences between Kazakhstan and the US. While Americans value individuality and personal achievement, the Kazakhstanis value collectivism and group success. There is no sense of competition between students, but rather a sense of teamwork. They seem to have the mentality that they are, as a group, trying to get through school without leaving anybody behind. They go to all classes as a group – 10B, for example is Saule’s homeroom class who I see twice a week – and they seem to just be looking out for each other. This system of support for the weak and the lazy carries over to oral exercises in class where a specific student will be asked to answer a question while all the students around him or her are whispering their advice and answers so the one on the spot doesn’t make the class look bad. This would be a great system for civil service programs that give food, clothing and housing to the poor and misfortunate, but poses problems for a classroom. By being part of a group, each student feels little responsibility to prepare for themselves, counting on other students to carry the weight. As time goes on, the difference of ability and knowledge between the productive and responsible students and the moochers widens and you end with a graduating class where three or four students can stand confidently and have a conversation in English while the rest of the class fidgets and looks for help when asked, “How often do you play sports?”

In order to weigh the options and consequences of dealing with cheating, I have had a couple lengthy discussions with my CP, who acknowledges the problem but doesn’t take offense as much as I do to the lack of honest work. She suggests that the students think that they can cheat more when I’m in the room because they think I will relate to them, cutting them slack because I was recently in their place. I do know what they are going through, but I also vividly remember the one time I cheated on a quiz and got caught by my favorite high school teacher. As she said my name and told me to put my quiz in the trash can, my face got hot and my ears burned with embarrassment. I remember being more affected by the disappointment in her voice than the zero I knew was going in the grade book. So when my student wants me to remember what it’s like to be them, I want to make it just as hard for them as it was for me (geez, I’m getting old). Seriously, though, they won’t learn to take responsibility for their own actions and their own education if they can just rely on the strong students to pull them through school. It happens in the university too, and I wonder how that translates to the work world and their economy as a whole. I do realize that I’m bound to my American values and they color or even blind my vision of some different perspectives, different viable options, where collective test taking (cheating) could be beneficial overall, in the big picture. The training material I mentioned also acknowledged the cons of an individual-based system, where employees in an organization might be less likely to work together for fear of losing credit for their hard work and possibly missing out on a promotion or pay raise. But as I have seen few students that have any sense of the big picture, the need to study now so that you can know and do something later, work now so that you can enjoy the fruits of your labor later, I don’t think I can just allow cheating in my classroom.

Forrest, a Kaz 18 at the college, has warned against getting too worked up about the issue because you can’t change the whole system. You can stick to your values and enforce your rules in your class, but fuming and screaming about it won’t raise your students’ sense of honesty or self-reliance, only your blood pressure. So, in a sense I am giving up on the fight before it gets out of hand, knowing that I can’t give students zeros for cheating. On the other hand, I may still make a difference (however small it might be) because I can (and will) spend the 45 minute testing period scanning for suspicious and illegal activity, taking up all foreign study aids, reminding them (in a serious, but not angry, voice) “Sahm delaem.”