Jun. 24, 2002 - 20:58 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Don't Get Caught

What can I say ? If teaching by example is the best way, our children and many adults are being given unforgivable lessons by those who should be above reproach but obviously aren't.

Only bad stuff makes the news, I know that. Still the things coming to light in the last year or so about the fudging, gunching and outright cheating give, I think, very telling reports of teaching by example in reverse. Enron et al, government, business, school life.

I read an article today by Leonard Pitts a columnist for The Miami Herald about a school incident in Piper Kansas. There was a teacher of biology at Piper High who had previously given warning to the kids that cheating would not be tolerated. Anyone who plagarized would receive no credit for the assignment which counted toward half their semester's grade.

Seems like 28 of the 118 students turned in papers that were quit similar and it just took the teacher a little checking on the Web to show her that those student's papers had been cut and pasted together from material on the web.

Should have been it, cut and dried one would think.

Apparently following present day practise of teaching by example, purple in the face parents descended on the school like the furies of hell. Mr. Pitts said, "What followed was to moral integrity as the Keystone Kops are to law enforcement." After the uproar created by parents of the failing students the the School Board ordered the teacher to soften the punishment. Geez, some of the people who by some hook or crook get on school boards actually set us behind by centuries. She quit, and it is said by Mr. Pitt that he hears that 13 of the 32 teachers resigned.

Even way back when I went to school, a caught cheater suffered a failing grade or worse. Most of us did cheat at one time or another trying for something we didn't really deserve BUT WE ALSO KNEW THE PENALTY if caught and took our medicine without a murmur. Didn't do the parents much good to rave, the punishment was rendered. At that time the School Boards did back their teachers and principals -- that was long beore Political Correctness stuck its foot in the door.

The uproar and fury created by the parents demonstrates that they feel their little angels should be allowed to fudge a bit. Their feelings I would guess would be comparable to the teenage type of thinking, "Well everybody else does it why can't our kids do it too ?"

Seems like from Nixon on down to the present day including the private sector the theme song of 2002 is, "Everybody's Doin It." Me and my buddies were sinners in our school system, and we had company but we went into it knowing that we would be punished if caught.

Folks who should know better and who scream when things don't go their way, to my way of thinking should keep their mouths shut and let their kids take the rap. It looks to me as if many people today, from the lowest to the highest are operating on the sophmoric idea that, "Tain't cheatin' if you Don't Get Caught . . . . . . .

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