I remember taking a test in eighth grade and seeing a boy peeking over another student’s shoulder, copying answers. I was furious that he was benefiting from someone else’s studying, and went up to the teacher right after class to let her know I’d seen the boy cheating, feeling totally vindicated in having done so. Eighth Grade Me had no clue that High School Me was going to change her mind on cheating.

I don’t remember ever cheating in any class except French. I felt my cheating was somehow valid: between chapters in our textbooks, there would be several pages describing attractions in France, like perfumeries or the Bastille Day parade. So that we could understand the textbook interludes, there would be about a hundred vocabulary words per story, including such useless words as drawbridge, frog man (no, seriously), and names of flowers. Words we wouldn’t need to conduct an average conversation, but all the same, words we were expected to know. I felt that memorizing words I wouldn’t use was a poor use of my time, so I simply refused to learn them and instead chose to cheat – CONSTANTLY.

Looking back, I can’t believe that I not only cheated, but did so for two entire years! The vocabulary words were pointless, sure, but knowing them was a requirement for class, regardless of whether I agreed with it. It wasn’t that I was incapable of memorization – a couple times my dad quizzed me on the words, and I learned all of them when I put in the effort. Since I wasn’t peeking at other students’ answers–I just made and used my own secret crib sheets with vocab lists on them during tests–I was able to pretend that what I was doing was justified. But really? I was simply lazy.

The cheating itself wasn’t very difficult, but despite trying to be subtle, I’m fairly sure at least half the class (and not just my friends, either) knew what I was doing. Being unwilling to study was my own problem, but I was also shoving it in my classmates’ faces, which was awful and unfair of me. How the teacher never caught me, I have no idea. I deserved to be caught. Had I been caught cheating, I don’t know what kind of punishment I’d have received, and having my overall class grade dropped to a D or F would have looked horrible to potential colleges…but I wouldn’t have been able to blame anyone except myself.

Even DUMBER than the cheating itself? I didn’t even cheat enough to get a good grade, because I also wasn’t paying enough attention to the grammar lessons! I can’t believe I was stupid/lazy/dishonest enough to have cheated anyway, and truthfully, I’m really embarrassed that I did so. Maybe I didn’t have to learn my lesson the hard way, but I still have to live with the shame of having been a liar and a fake. I was only a good student when I wanted to be, and if I prided myself in decent grades, I should have earned them fairly, in ALL my classes.

Have you ever cheated in school? What would you do if you saw somebody cheating on a test? Tell me in the comments!

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