Ultimate Career

I invigilated in an examination at a college in mainland China over
the past weekend and thought that invigilation is probably one of
the most boring jobs in the world for me.: )

But what turned out to be interesting was that, after the 3-hour
bored-to-tears work, I was told of cheating cases that ran rampant
throughout every exam every semester. And   some perpetrators were
caught red-handed just the day before. Still, there are many others
who were not caught in the act and continue to cheat their way
through examinations.

Even the taxi driver who drove me to the ferry terminal en route
back to Hong Kong told me that cheating in China is a national
“sickness” and that the only lesson the cheats will learn is how
not to be caught next time.

The phenomenon is much like organized crime as the cheats band
together in groups with efficient division-of-labour. I’m sure many
of their teachers will wish they could put such resources to better
and more proper use in class.

Question is: Why do these students resort to cheating?

Is it the need to get ahead? Or is it simply that they want
something for nothing? As in, get on the fast track without any
effort…

While doing my doctoral studies, I came across one intriguing
theory that can perhaps explain the need to cheat and that is:
People who resort to cheating usual have very low self-esteem.

They do not think highly of themselves and yet, want others to
think highly of them. They want to APPEAR that they have achieved
something yet actually have achieved nothing.

Outwardly, some of them may appear to be very confident but
inwardly, they carry a deep fear of failure and deep fear of how
others around them will look down at them should they not do well
in their studies.

They think that intelligence is fixed and that they are either born
with it or they are not born with it. Yet, whichever the case, they
possess a pressing need to protect the image of “intelligence” that
others have of them that they’ll cheat just to continue to look good.

They think that smart people do not need to exert effort and if
they needed to exert effort, they’ll not appear to be smart. Hence,
they’ll choose to do tasks that appear to be difficult to others
but are easy to them. This is such that they’ll win praise.

They’ll choose to sabotage themselves and tend to procrastinate and
do things at the very last minute so that in the event they didn’t
do well with the tasks, they have the excuse of saying, “I didn’t
have much time anyway…”

Interestingly, these are the same people who will more likely slip
into depression and even kill themselves when things do not go well
or when they think that others do not think highly of them.

The sad fact is that these people live their lives like puppets -
constantly controlled by how other people look at them – hence,
devoid of meaning.

As they resort to cheating, they have trashed their integrity and
chosen the path of poor character. How can they be ever trusted
with anything?