Maciej Kaleciński
Academic Writing, IIIA
Analytic Essay
May 26, 2007
To: Dr. Sean Hartigan
Can anything be done about the problem of cheating in Polish schools?
There is no doubt that the problem of cheating at schools in Poland is very common. That is probably due to our historical background and the fact that no one really ever does anything about it. According to the survey that was conducted on a large group of people from various cities in Poland and coming from different backgrounds, only 49 per cent of the surveyed consider cheating during exams as something wrong and unforgivable, while 25 per cent actually approve such actions (Boguszewski, 2007). It seems to be so popular at schools that nowadays people who do not cheat are considered to be either “nerds” or “morons with no skills”. Moreover, the popularity of this method resulted in the fact that students actually boast about how much knowledge they managed to write down into their exam sheet from the cribs they had earlier prepared.
There are lots of reasons for which people turn to cheating. First of all, people choose this form of dishonesty because they consider it an easier option than studying and therefore do not even try to learn the material properly. They lack any motivation for studying, because they can cheat. Secondly, sometimes the students are to obtain large amounts of book knowledge in a short period of time before the exam, so they turn to cheating, as they do not manage to learn everything by heart on such short notice. Additionally, sometimes even the incompetence of the teacher of a given subject in explaining the material can be the cause why the students cheat on exams. “The main reason for cheating is that it is easy to get away with. That coupled with a tradition of getting round monitoring bodies under the previous political regime results in an established tradition that shows no sign of dying out of its own accord.” (Young, 2003) says David Young, an English teacher from Wroclaw.
As it was mentioned before, Poland had a rich and quite cruel history. Especially during the Second World War, skill such as gathering information an avoiding detection while forking for the resistance were sought among the people to be necessary in successful fight for independence. After the war, the winning Russian Red Army entered our territories and imposed socialistic order upon our country. Once again, having to cope with strict authorities and teachers at school the Polish had to resort to cheating, not only at school but also in everyday life.
Sadly, although those times are gone for more than 16 years, we still develop those deceptive skills. Moreover, the present tolerance for this kind of activities and pathetic laws controlling such unwanted behaviour does not at all help containing the cheating during exams and making it disappear.
