Dear Abby

READERS: Today’s column is a continuation of the one I
printed yesterday regarding cheating and ethics — a topic
that clearly touched a nerve with many readers.

ABBY: I’m a retired teacher. Your response regarding high
school honor students cheating shows that you do not under-
stand the current school system. Administration is too busy
with REAL problems and chooses to ignore this one. In fact,
I had “good” students caught using drugs at lunch and
nothing was done because “these students are not causing
problems in school.”
– LARRY IN TEXAS

LARRY: I disagree with school administrators who pretend
that students getting stoned on campus isn’t a problem.
Those “honor” students may not have been openly disruptive,
but they were breaking the law, and that is a serious
problem. If there is no accountability, then no solution
to a problem is possible.

ABBY: You’re right that ethics have taken a nosedive, but
where does it start? It starts in the home. I’ve seen moms
feed their children food at the grocery store and throw the
wrapper away without paying for it. Everyone needs to look
at the behavior they model for their children and do the
right thing.
– DEBBIE IN GREER, S.C.

ABBY: When I attended college at a small school in Oregon,
my English teacher was in her first year of teaching. A
few days after the first test I took in her class, she
announced that she had proof that someone had cheated. She
then discarded those tests and passed out new ones. Frankly,
I was glad to have a teacher who didn’t look the other way.
– ANNE IN PORTLAND, ORE.

ABBY: I teach at a state university. If I catch students
cheating, they fail my course automatically. In addition,
I also have the option of attaching the reason for that
failure to their transcripts, which will probably make
finding a job more difficult after they leave school,
since those transcripts provide proof of their dishonesty
to potential employers.

Too many people in our society, students included, opt for
the easy way out when challenged. If “Valedictorian
Contender” feels guilty about turning in cheaters, he/she
should consider that getting caught now might be the best
thing that could happen to them. Not only are they cheating
themselves out of the learning they would have gained by
putting forth the effort to learn the material, but they
also risk their chances for future success.
– S.L. IN OHIO

ABBY: If students today were taught the value of morality
by studying literature and philosophy, history and economics,
they would develop a higher mind and a greater belief in
their own need for a sounder character.

We are assailed on many fronts by problems that seem
insurmountable and insoluble, and it’s easy to become
discouraged. But so long as some of us strive to emphasize
the need for honesty and instill in our young charges a
sense of outrage for injustice, dishonesty and chicanery,
we can avoid what earlier generations called mountebankery,
humbug and fraud.
– C.R. IN HOUSTON

ABBY: I cannot stress the importance of exposing wrongdoing
when it is encountered. To quote Robert F. Kennedy: “Every
time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law
flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we
close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too
busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak
out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.”
– KERRY IN MONTGOMERY, ALA.