Pro harsher punishments:
Over 50% of students admit to cheating on some sort of assignment or exam. By having harsher punishments it can make students fear the consequences of cheating. Most students cheat because they aren't prepared for a certain task the next day, and this is totally unfair to the students who are prepared and took time to get ready for an exam or assignment. By letting the student's get away with cheating or by not giving them a harsher punishment, might make them think it's fine or it's the easy way out and they will continue to do it. This could cause problems when they're older as well because nobody during high school caught them or said anything about it. According to Cal Poly, "learning to think and work independently is part of the educational process," so if schools don't implement stronger punishments, students will continue to do it and they will always depend on others for help (academicprograms.calpoly.edu, 2019). Overall, cheating is very common and there's not much to do to stop it but by creating harsher punishments, the number of students who cheat could go down.
Con harsher punishments:
There are also many reasons why we should not have harsher punishments in schools. By having harsher punishments it might scare the students enough to not have them cheat anymore but it could also impact students for a long term. For example, the fear of being hit or hurt in any type of way, can take a toll on a child's brain development and lower their IQ (Morin, verywell.com, 2018). A study done by the Pediatrics Report showed that students who were given harsh and hurtful punishments could grow up with anxiety disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, increased aggression, or even a substance abuse. Some schools in the U.S. decide what punishment to give based on the severity of issue. For example, in Georgia, when a student plagiarizes on a paper, then they get a zero for that assignment, but if they cheat on an exam, then they fail the class. Some people say that these punishments aren't effective and don't scare the students as much but these consequences can impact a student's future.
My Position:
In my opinion, I don't think we need harsher punishments because the punishments we already have are already meaningful. When a student cheats, its their decision and they will have to deal with the punishment they get. Sometimes students don't get enough time to study the night before or they didn't have time to write a paper so they cheat. Instead of embarrassing or punishing the student on the spot, the teacher could easily ask why or how come they didn't prepare and sometimes all a student needs is a little more time. There are also many easy and more effective alternatives for cheating as well, like taking away a privilege. If a parent was contacted because their child was cheating, the parent could take away their phone because during this generation, where nearly everyone has a phone, it would scare the child much more to not cheat again. Finally, if a student cheats, it could go on their transcript and make it harder for that student to get a job or even to move to another school. So, I believe by implementing harsher punishments, it would be doing more harm than good.
I disagree because with this because I believe the punishment needs to be harsher for students that are caught cheating. By taking away their phone or a privilege the student knows they will get it back in the future, ultimately making it so they will make the same mistake again. I believe we need harsher punishments for students caught cheating because it will have a everlasting effect on the student and deter them from making the same mistake again in the future.
ReplyDeleteI agree, we don't need to call the student out in front of the class, but rather the teacher could ask the student after class why him or her did cheat, and they could get a privilege taken away, like if they do a sport, or any kind of school activity, could be benched for a certain period of time.
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