fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2298 ]

[ SECRET POST #2298 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2298 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hi fs, what do you do when you know someone is cheating on their tests and exams? My dad took a management course at a community college last fall and cheated for all of his online exams. He said because his English is not good (he's an immigrant), he got one of his classmates to send him their answers for the exams to "check" his own answers. What he did instead was looking questions that were the same on his exam and his classmate's exam then entered the answer his classmate gave. When my mom saw what he was doing, she told him he shouln't have done that. He said it was okay. I told him he should at least be reading the questions but he said he didn't have the time to do it within the 1 hour limit of the test. When I asked if he was going over the questions afterward by himself, he said he had work and other homework assignments to finish.

My parents have always told me how important education is and how you should always do your own work. What my father did was the opposite of what he preached and yet, he's way more vocal than my mom about my schooling. This has been tearing me up since October. I can't talk to my school guidance department about it because I'm sure they'd want to investigate and penalize my dad. While I normally would have spoke up, I didn't because the course he took was subsidized by his company. Since my dad is the only person earning income for my entire family, I don't want to do anything to make him lose his job.

I'm sorry fs, I really don't have anyone in real life to talk about this with.

...look. Cheating is bad. But you don't turn in your own father. He didn't kill anybody.

+1

OP, your dad did a bad thing, but taking action against him is probably also a bad idea. In the grand scheme of things, one management course at a community college? Not a big deal.

This is the only course my mom and I caught him cheating on. This is not the only course he took that was subsidized by his company and I think he cheated on his other courses too.

The other thing is, he's using this management course and another course he took at the same college on his resumé as additional certifications. I really hope companies are not going to hire him based on this addition certification because I don't think he actually learned anything.

Re: Academic Honesty

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-19 01:02 (UTC) - Expand

Don't report him, but I'd definitely confront him about it.

If it's some bogus course like Business Theory (stuff like recession versus depression, economics models, etcetera), unless your Dad is directly involved in like, running a bank or Wall Street or something, some of the "management" courses are pretty much bogus, and of no use in the real world at all, when it comes to actually working...and if you ARE actually working, sometimes it can be hard to fill your brain with useless facts and figures that you're never going to EVER need again, after the test is over.

This doesn't help for the past, but maybe if he takes any classes like this in the future, you can recommend that he ask if he can have some sort of extended time limit on tests so he has time to read and understand all the questions.

I agree with this. Does the professor know that this man has a hard time with English?

I know he talks to his professors about moving deadlines because of his work hours. I don't know if they would have given him extra time on his exams. The online tests are automated and I don't know if extensions are possible.

Besides, everyone has to take a college English course before taking any other classes. My dad really should not be doing so badly since he passed the English course. Since he is, I wonder if he cheated off his classmates too when he took the English course.

Re: Academic Honesty

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-19 00:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Academic Honesty

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-19 01:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Academic Honesty

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-19 02:17 (UTC) - Expand

It's disappointing when parents and authority figures behave hypocritically. :( I'm sorry your dad put you in this position.

I think cheating is wrong for a variety of reasons, but I also think it's probably not a good idea for you to report your dad for the reasons you mention in your post.

What can I do to make him not cheat again? I know English is his main problem right now and I've tried helping him with English before. The thing is, he doesn't practice and the only time he ever does anything in English is when he's at work or when he's doing classwork. I actually think his English is worse now than when he first immigrated here because he's not taking regular ESL classes anymore. Also, now that there are non-English services for everything from groceries to insurance companies (whereas everything was English-only when my family first came here), my dad always asks for non-English service now. He has even said repeatedly that he would never have taken that first college English class if his company wasn't subsidizing it. I don't know if I can make a difference when he's not putting in effort.

I think that maybe you can't do anything. :(

One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn is that I can't help some people and that I can't change people who don't want to change.

I think that you clearly care about your dad and what's best for him and that makes watching him do things that are unethical and frankly counterproductive in terms of his career and other parts of his life doubly hard to watch.

If you think you have the kind of relationship with your parents in which you can talk about this with them, then I think doing so might give you some closure. However, I think you should be prepared to see no change in your dad's behavior.

*hugs*

Re: Academic Honesty

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-19 03:33 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Academic Honesty

lunabee34 - 2013-04-19 18:51 (UTC) - Expand

NGL, but it astonishes me that you'd even consider reporting your Dad. I mean, sure it's disappointing as hell (but isn't it always when an authority figure/loved one doesn't measure up to standard or do the right thing?), but he's your Dad. He RAISED you, even if he didn't meet the standards he set for you, personally.

I just can't fathom this. My mom could commit murder and I would provide the shovel and trash bag and help her bury the body.

Talk to your Dad about this, tell him how disappointing and upsetting you found his actions to be, and if nothing changes, then drop it. Maybe he'll have to face the consequences of his actions sooner or later, and maybe not. If I were you I'd be hoping for latter, not try to hurry it along.

I wouldn't be worrying about this if my dad took the course for fun and paid for it himself. He used his company's money to pay for a course I don't think he should have earned. He's also using this course and another course I also think he should not have earned on his resumé. I'm afraid that he's going to take more courses and cheat his way through them with his company's money. I'm even more afraid that if he gets hired by another company and they find that he didn't know the courses as well as they expected him to, they'll fire him.

My mom could commit murder and I would provide the shovel and trash bag and help her bury the body.

Oh my god. I really hope you are not serious. I would tell my mom (or my son, or my daughter) to turn themselves in.

This. And my parents have always said they'd do the same if any of us kids were in trouble with the law. It's not that anyone is going to stop loving each other - but damn, if you are in SERIOUS trouble with the law, then you own up to it. No way am I going to be an accessory to your crime just because we're related by blood and you do damn stupid things.

Gah! Family covering up for family. I'm guessing you're not equally as understanding when someone else does you wrong, but they don't get punished for it, because THEIR family helps them cover it up?

Did he feel failing the class would jeopardize his job stability? Because if that were the case, maybe his reasons for cheating are the same reasons you have for not saying anything about him irl. It's nice to try to stick to what you preach and not be dishonest, but if you've got a family to supply for, well...

It's shitty to be hypocritical, but maybe he's harking on your education so that you don't end up in the same position.

I don't think so? There was no reason he couldn't have taken the class and paid for the class himself. But you might be right. The only thing I know is that if he did not pass the class, his company would not have subsidized the fee for taking the course. I don't know if he had to declare with his company that he was taking the course in the first place. Thank you for this perspective.

I don't think so?

Exactly. "You don't think so?" means YOU DON'T KNOW. It's not your business, you don't know shit, so fucking stay out of it.

Re: Academic Honesty

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-19 21:35 (UTC) - Expand

To be honest, if he's copying answers from his classmates, especially without looking at the actual questions, he'll probably eventually get caught anyway. Most teachers have a way of being able to tell when you did your own work and when you copied from another person or off the internet (unless it's multiple choice).

I can see that you are in between a rock and a hard place, and so is your dad if his job is on the line. Well, whatever happens, good luck.

The test my mom and I caught him on was multiple choice. Thanks.

are you trolling tho? i consider myself to have decent morals when it comes to this kind of thing. however, education is, for the most part, not about your grades. grades for a lot of people are actually pretty useless in determining their knowledge on a subject. it's nice that you place so much importance on education but please understand that cheating on a test like that because of a language barrier or some other such thing is really not hurting anybody in the long run. yeah, he wasn't honest when he took the test, but what consequences will he face for that? not actually knowing all of the material? most of us don't know all of the material we're taught anyway.

if he tries to learn through experience and strives to be a better and more intelligent person then what he does in the standard education system of this country - assuming USA, but applicable to several systems across the globe - really doesn't matter.

there's a popular text post running through tumblr right now that sums up high school in three bullet points: "i'm a piece of shit, everyone else is a piece of shit, and mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell." i think that describes the education system fairly well. for many countries, it's broken. so cheating on one test to get through the day, to get through the class, to get through the system - it's okay, really. the system damages a lot of us in many ways. getting through it and learning outside of a school setting is what's valuable, i think.

so i mean yeah cheating in general - especially due to mere laziness - is bullshit, but 1) he's your dad, and it's clear he's trying to make a better way for himself and his family, and 2) who the fuck even gives that much of a shit? go smoke a joint and calm yourself.

1) Trying to make a better way for himself and his family? Not really. If he was, he would have continued to take English classes even after he got hired for full-time work. He would have taken classes and exams to become re-qualified in the field he majored in. He would not be teaching my little brothers and my little sister shitty grammer and wrong spellings IN ENGLISH. He would not be watching non-English dramas and reading non-English news and NOT USING ENGLISH outside of work and class. He would not have been sending out resumés for the last ten years without even receiving one offer for another job if he really was improving himself. Hell, he would not have told my mom he's "too busy" to look after my baby brother when my mom had to go out for groceries and I was helping my other siblings with homework, all because he was playing chess over fucking internet.

2) I don't want to see my dad get fired because he beefed up his resumé and companies hired him for his beefed up resumé that he can't deliver on. I want him to actually learn the stuff he's supposed to learn and, most of all, improve his English. Is it really bad that I want to nip this in the bud because I don't want to see him get screwed over by it?

It's not bad, don't let these idiots give you a hard time because... if you love someone you never ever call them out on their shit, apparently?
Really, they're just acting stupid.

Re: Academic Honesty

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-20 06:43 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Academic Honesty

world_eater - 2013-04-20 10:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Academic Honesty

(Anonymous) - 2013-04-20 12:43 (UTC) - Expand

OP, I'm impressed with your sense of ethics, your responses throughout this thread, and especially the patient, sensible way you reply to even the dippiest of the dippy commenters in this entire thread.

I hope you can work things out with your dad, but even if you can't - in the end, it's his life, and if there are consequences to his actions, then he'll have to deal with them. Just do your best, and stick to what you believe is right.

Good luck to you!