Secrets of Cheating Revealed and Myths Dispelled

Secrets of Cheating Revealed and Myths Dispelled School Cheating: A Cause of Students’ Troubles or Its Consequence? People tend to blame wrongdoers by default, leaving circumstances and motivations aside. Usually, it is a plausible way to evaluate a situation, but sometimes, a second thought is needed, like in case with school cheating. But what is cheating, why does it exist, how does it affect students’ skills and can it be prevented (and should it)? We will try to find answers to these questions in the following article, so read on. What Is Cheating and Why Does It Exist Among Students? Cheating is copying home tasks from other students, from the web or asking for other students’ help while sitting the exams or midterm tests (and other kinds of assessment). Cheating is blamed on the laziness of students and is supposed to mean their total educational failure since they cannot cope with the material and so ‘steal’ it from the others. But cheating has existed probably as long as students and teachers themselves. People with excellent grades and records have poor jobs, and people who dropped from their schools or hardly managed to graduate then build successful careers and create cool things. So it looks like getting good grades or completing all homework individually does not guarantee success and vice versa. So, well, cheating is not an indication of academic failure. It indicates something else. But what? It points to the extreme loads of duties and expectations placed on children and to the total inability of the education system to account for natural capacities and limits children have. It also indicates that inbuilt creativity and smartness of children still exist, and it helps children rig the system that is rigged against them, in the first place. Put in less complicated words, if children are expected to accomplish things that are basically un-accomplishable, they will find the way out. If homework is so big that it is impossible to cope with it for the majority of students, they will find the way to obtain it from smarter and more persistent classmates or will complete parts of work and exchange these parts between themselves, so that everyone gets a complete work. Anyway, in a system where grades mean everything and knowledge and understanding mean nothing, cheating is only one of the logical step kids take to help themselves out. Common Misconceptions About Cheating Cheating is for lazy. No. Time and efforts spent on preparation of cheats are as labor intense as any other intellectual activity. Some may argue that students better be learning with this intensity, but teachers today assess not knowledge but very formal markers of knowledge, and students provide what is required from them. Cheating does nothing to improve knowledge and just brings students undeserved grades. – No. While copying homework or preparing cheats for tests students repeat the material and learn at least basics of stuff that they will not get otherwise. Cheating outwardly harms learning process. – No. It improves it. Students exchange, copy, repeat, go over the stuff, read, select, and in general do things they are supposed to do at school. Cheating makes students stupid. – Big no. Just imagine how much creativity and skills are required to prepare cheats and to use them. It requires self-control, discreetness, resistance to stress, ingenuity and many more traits that are absolutely necessary in our agile and unstable world. So instead of memorizing stuff, they do not understand, students learn skills they will apply anywhere – and be praised as valuable workers. Cheating is unethical. – If assessing formal criteria (like writing all answers to problems in a column) instead of assessing the correctness of answers and creativity of thinking is OK from an ethical viewpoint, then cheating as an adequate solution is ethical as well. Surprising Upsides to Cheating for Children Cheating is training in itself, and even more intense and useful training than writing letters or memorizing poems. To cheat, children, even in elementary school, need to develop and possess the following skills (and can every adult boast of having them all?): concentration attention to details memorizing things heard or seen only once (catching a glimpse in a mate’s handout, for example) caution fast reaction We can bet that every adult would want to develop these traits in themselves and see them develop in their kids. Hence cheating is a very positive booster for these skills – and not only for the classroom. Homework is actually useless and even dangerous for kids Despite the traditional belief into the usefulness of loads of homework, the reasons behind giving it are more of wishful thinking kind than of true science. Indeed, older students can benefit from limited amounts of homework, but not young kids and middle schoolers. Recent experiments on canceling homework altogether show that students in such classes show the same level of academic success and failures as students who perform homework daily. So what’s the sense? Besides, along being mostly useless, unregulated and abundant homework is outwardly harmful to the mental and physical health of kids. Homework harms kids’ health significantly by stealing their sleep and play/rest time. A school day is almost equal to a workday, but after this day kids are expected to work even more, and it is called ‘time management’, not overtime work, like it should be. Children lack sleep, lack exercise and simply relaxation time, they get mental health problems, anxieties, chronic fatigue, eating disorders, all for the sake of turning in an assignment that no one will bother to check. Homework steals time. Kids have their whole day mapped out for them, with no time to be kids or teens, they are treated like adults in regard to responsibilities but dismissed as children when it comes to their wishes and needs. Not very progressive approach. Hometask is also believed to discipline kids, teach them to order, but the world needs creativity today, and structured time filled with boring useless tasks is a killer of creativity. According to Alfie Cohn, a researcher, and many other reliable investigations, the impact of homework on academic success is almost negligible. So why is the practice of homework so persistent? Just because of habit? Homework destroys peace with parents. Teens already have it hard during their transition from childhood to adulthood. Homework is one more stumbling stone that makes kid and parents argue. Parents believe that teachers know what they do when they give that much homework (but it looks like they don’t). So parents make kids do every assignment instead of relaxing, watching TV or socializing. That’s enough to spark a quarrel. Sometimes parents try to help kids do cope with tasks, but parents have long forgotten the school stuff (or did not learn it properly anyway). Besides, they are not teachers and do not have skills and patience to explain and help properly, on a level accessible to a child. So instead of help, new trouble of miscommunication arises. Cheating Is a Symptom of the Problem, Not a Cause So what is the conclusion? Cheating time, everyone? Definitely, no, it is not. Students do need to learn and understand school subjects properly to be able to study in college and then move on to work. But cheating persistently indicates that the education system does not work the way it should, and instead of gaining skills students employ cheating tactics to get high grades that are demanded by parents, teachers and state/federal education bodies. If the system becomes more productive and inspiring, with less stress on failure and more pressure on the joy of discovery and learning something new, then cheating will become a negligent percentage of students’ activities. As of today, it is a bailout gear that helps students stay afloat in the modern schooling system and not lose their mind completely. Need help, and no friend can help you? Let us be your friends and provide you with a completed assignment or paper that will bail you out and bring you positive grades – and maybe some long-needed rest.

Son Tay Raid During the Vietnam War

Son Tay Raid During the Vietnam War The raid on Son Tay prison camp occurred during the Vietnam War.  Colonel Simons and his men captured Son Tay on November 21, 1970. Armies Commanders United States Colonel Arthur D. Bull SimonsLieutenant Colonel Elliot Bud Sydnor56 Special Forces soldiers, 92 airmen, 29 aircraft North Vietnam Leaders: UnknownNumbers: Unknown Son Tay Raid Background In 1970, the US had identified the names of over 500 American POWs who were being held by the North Vietnamese. Sources reported that these prisoners were being held in atrocious conditions and were being cruelly treated by their captors. That June, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle G. Wheeler, authorized the formation a fifteen-member planning group to address the issue. Operating under the codename Polar Circle, this group studied the possibility of conducting a night raid on a North Vietnamese POW camp and found that an attack on the camp at Son Tay was feasible and should be attempted. Son Tay Raid Training Two months later, Operation Ivory Coast commenced to organize, plan, and train for the mission. Overall command was given to Air Force Brigadier General LeRoy J. Manor, with Special Forces Colonel Arthur Bull Simons leading the raid itself. While Manor assembled a planning staff, Simons recruited 103 volunteers from the 6th and 7th Special Forces Groups. Based at Eglin Air Force Base, FL, and working under the name Joint Contingency Task Group, Simons men began studying models of the camp and rehearsing the attack on a full-size replica. While Simons men were training, the planners identified two windows, October 21 to 25 and November 21 to 25, which possessed the ideal moonlight and weather conditions for the raid. Manor and Simons also met with Admiral Fred Bardshar to set up a diversionary mission to be flown by naval aircraft. After 170 rehearsals at Eglin, Manor informed the Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, that all was ready for the October attack window. Following a meeting at the White House with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, the raid was delayed until November. Son Tay Raid Planning After using the extra time for further training, JCTG moved to its forward bases in Thailand. For the raid, Simons selected 56 Green Berets from his pool of 103. These men were divided into three groups each with a different mission. The first was the 14-man assault group, Blueboy, which was to land inside the camp compound. This would be supported by the 22-man command group, Greenleaf, which would land outside, then blow a hole in the compound wall and support Blueboy. These were supported by the 20-man Redwine which was to provide security against North Vietnamese reaction forces. Son Tay Raid Execution The raiders were to approach the camp by air aboard helicopters with fighter cover above to deal with any North Vietnamese MiGs. All told, 29 aircraft played a direct role in the mission. Due to the impending approach of Typhoon Patsy, the mission was moved up one day to November 20. Departing their base in Thailand at 11:25 PM on November 20, the raiders had an uneventful flight to the camp as the Navys diversionary raid had achieved its purpose. At 2:18 AM, the helicopter carrying Blueboy successfully crash landed inside the compound at Son Tay. Racing from the helicopter, Captain Richard J. Meadows led the assault team in eliminating the guards and securing the compound. Three minutes later, Col. Simons landed with Greenleaf approximately a quarter mile from their intended LZ. After attacking a nearby North Vietnamese barracks and killing between 100 to 200, Greenleaf re-embarked and flew to the compound. In Greenleafs absence, Redwine, led by Lieutenant Colonel Elliott P. â€Å"Bud† Sydnor, landed outside Son Tay and executed Greenleafs mission as per the operations contingency plans. After conducting a thorough search of the camp, Meadows radioed Negative Items to the command group signaling that no POWs were present. At 2:36, the first group departed by helicopter, followed by the second nine minutes later. The raiders arrived back in Thailand at 4:28, approximately five hours after departing, having spent a total of twenty-seven minutes on the ground. Son Tay Raid Aftermath Brilliantly executed, American casualties for the raid were one wounded. This occurred when a helicopter crewman broke his ankle during the insertion of Blueboy. In addition, two aircraft were lost in the operation. North Vietnamese casualties were estimated at between 100 to 200 killed. Intelligence later revealed that the POWs at Son Tay had been moved to a camp fifteen miles away in July. While some intelligence indicated this immediately prior to the raid, there was not the time to change the target. Despite this intelligence failure, the raid was deemed a tactical success due to its nearly flawless execution. For their actions during the raid, the members of the task force were awarded six Distinguished Service Crosses, five Air Force Crosses, and eighty-three Silver Stars. Resources and Further Reading The Son Tay Raid: A Study in Presidental PolicySon Tay Raider Association