At the beginning of the 2018-19 school year in Coppell High School, teachers asked to lead classroom discussions on integrity to their students, giving relief to many students since the school is recognizing the cheating and honesty issues within.

CHS is full of many different people, some with better morales than others. Situations where students cheat and do not do their own work can be very frustrating to the students that try their best and work hard on their assignments. Since our first years in elementary school, cheating has been one of the most problematic situations for students, but by now we are old enough to understand that we need to do our own work and stay true to it.

Teachers participated and lead class discussions with their students on what integrity means, to teach them what it means and how to keep it in their school work. These discussions were much needed due to our overall lack of integrity within the school.

Reception to these educational initiatives varied among the student body, although many responses lean toward the positive.

“I am happy that the school is recognizing and addressing their cheating issues in previous years, but I personally was not thrilled to have every individual teacher talk to me about integrity, as it felt repetitive,” CHS sophomore Jordan Cohen said.

Doing our own work is the best way we learn. We fully understand the information we are being given and apply it correctly. This process of learning is unable to occur when all you do is copy and paste. This leads to students feeling the need to cheat on tests and assignments as a sort of last minute resort and a short cut. When students feel that the only way they can get good grades on assignments is by cheating, they begin to learn less and get worse grades on the assignments and tests that they aren’t able to cheat on.

One particular point of strength in the design of these presentations may lie in the fact that presenters were respected authority figures. Hearing something from a figure that you respect more than others would most certainly change your view on what you are being told.

“Hearing a lecture from someone that I looked up to caused me to take it more seriously than I did from any other teacher that I just met that day,” CHS sophomore Zahid Valdez said.

I can understand why students would take the discussion more seriously in different situations, but as students, we still need to respect all of our teachers and listen to what they are saying. This is one way we can use integrity in our lives, by paying attention and respecting our figures of authority. Respecting our teachers is just one more step that we could all improve on our integrity.

Many classroom interruptions are from students lying about what they are doing, such as being on their phone during a test or quiz, talking with others while they are meant to be doing a silent assignment or fib about their homework being turned in late and making up excuses for it. Teachers can get into disagreements because of the missing integrity in situations. Once again, this disrupts the class and puts everything on hold for the people who are actually doing their work.

The students who lack integrity need the help so that they can earn better grades and relieve stress, while also helping other students that have integrity to not have to worry about watching out for cheating.

The lessons were a much needed helping hand to those students, and I am happy to see that more students are recognizing the issue and fixing it within their own work.