The Importance Of Honesty In Schools

Honesty,a necessity in all healthy relationships--whether its a marriage, business partnership, or a friendship. In higher academics, this honesty becomes extremely important due to the large sum of money invested into university or community college education. Many schools across the United States have included an honor code to enforce this honesty into class assignments or assessments, however these rules don’t always see success in American schools. Why would such a high level of education struggle with honesty and an honor code? This struggle could be related to the academic environment within the walls of four year universities or a community college. If an institute sets forth the honor code and uses its own students to create an honest student body

At Bothell high School a majority of students weren’t sure what the honor code was, and most of the time professors will only wave a finger and explain that cheating is evil and will be enforced through administration. However, in a high school environment the seriousness of an honor code is never fully realized and most students will continue to copy and paste notes from other students. This a serious issue at BHS, and teachers and students are not willing to enforce the honor code due to the taboo nature of reporting a fellow student. Sally Sledge and Pam Pringle ran a number of surveys to show a high schoolers attitude to an honor code. A large amount of students were taught about an honor code whether it be verbal or through the course syllabus, specifically sixty five percent. However, a staggering number of students--forty two percent--did not know the extent to which you could be punished for abusing the honor code (Source E). These statistics are similar to the numbers that would most likely come out of similar surveys given to students at Bothell high