Journal 4

          From a technical standpoint, any student who has cheated is technically academically dishonest.  However, like most things in life, this issue isn't purely black and white.  A lot of the reasons for cheating we talked about in class lend to this grey area of when cheating is a real issue.  In high school, I think cheating wasn't a big deal at the petty-busywork-assignment level because teachers typically gave homework for one of three reasons: for sheer busywork/not wanting to teach on a particular day, to create a grade "buffer" so that passing the course is easier, or to check for understanding.  I think teachers rarely give out homework "for the hell of it" because that would just make their grading more time consuming.  Therefore, I think it's safe to assume it is for one of the reasons above.  When you look at these reasons, all of them have some type of academic purpose, directly related to the material and grade of the course.  This brings up the question of why, then, is it "okay" to cheat in high school if there is still a clear academic component, even to such busywork.  I think, it has to do with attitude towards high school classes and what the end result is.  The ultimate goal of high school, nowadays, is to prepare students for either college or tech school or some other form of post-secondary education.  This influences the idea that high school doesn't really matter as far as a career goes, it is just a step.  Also, this lends to the idea that high school courses don't matter.  Which circles back to reasoning that cheating is okay.  Aside from reasoning that cheating is okay, some people understand and accept that cheating is wrong, but cheat anyway to gain scholarship money or acceptance from loved ones.

          Moving out of the high school and into college eliminates some of these issues such as the "it doesn't matter" mentality.  It also introduces new deterrents by way of strict rules ending in zeros in classes and the threat of dismissal.  These rules help to prevent students from cheating, but that doesn't mean the students are no longer academically dishonest.  In my opinion, academic honesty is more than not cheating.  It is a mentality of "my work is my own" and understanding why cheating itself is wrong.

          The number of people that admitted to cheating was rather large although not very surprising.  In fact, as some of my classmates speculated, I think that the few people who said "no" are either lying or lying to themselves about what cheating is.  While most of the class has cheated, I would venture to say that most of them are actually academically honest because I think they understand why cheating is wrong and have, since high school, refined their opinions on sharing work.  At least I have.