Ce să fac?

Academic Honesty is the underlying theme of the summer camp I am working at this year. Yes, a bit of a stretch I feel, even if it is an academic camp. It should be fun to try and work this into my lessons on environmentalism and health!! Maybe I can squeeze it in when I teach them arts and crafts!A random Moldova shot. Horse cart in the forgound and Mac truck in the backgroud.

Why such an esoteric theme for the time when students actually get a chance to escape from the drudgery of school? Well, because what we Americans would refer to as “cheating” is rampant here in Moldova. Even in my class, which is an optional, ungraded course, the kids talked and copied from each other during the entire end of semester quiz. They looked at me like I was nuts when I yelled at them for cheating, and then decided I was worth ignoring as my partner teacher started to give them the correct answers. So much for using the quiz as a tool to gage what they had learned.

After this delightful experience, in which I almost left the school out of protest, I let the issue drop and concluded that this was one of those cultural battles that I simply did not have the time to tackle. The chemical addictions of my 7^th graders seemed like a slightly more pressing issue. Thus I ever so pleasantly avoided the issue until it was so rudely broached in our planning sessions for our camp.

Responsibility for the camp is divided between three entities, with Peace Corps Volunteers filling a third of the counselor positions. The rest of the staff is composed of Moldovan teachers and students. Thus our “theme of the year” discussion nearly dissolved into an international incident as we Americans asserted our ever so “correct” viewpoints. I will readily admit that we were a bit boorish in our posturing, and while there is a more refined concept of academic honesty in American educational institutions, we cannot put our students up on a pedestal. Folks still cheat in American, the difference is simply that it is generally understood that it is unacceptable.

This is the important point here. For most Moldovans, cheating is not an issue of moral contempt, but rather an accepted academic tradition. Most folks in my village couldn’t even really give me a word for the concept; they simply feel that the kids are copying from each other, which isn’t really that bad in their eyes. It’s like borrowing a cup of sugar from a neighbor. I know this for a fact because the teachers help their students do it. I have seen the technology teacher download encyclopedia entries, remove the reference notations, put a student’s name at the top, and then print it off for them to turn in to another teacher. My host “mother”, whom I hold in great esteem, generally does her son’s French essays and homework. She explained that he never really was that good at it, and she doesn’t want him to get a bad grade.

Back at the camp-planning meeting, after a particularly poorly worded comment by an American, I attempted to sooth the crowd with an observation. We are essentially looking at the difference between a collectivistic society and an individualistic one. While I realize that the issue is much more complex than this, it seems like a valid point. While we the uber competitive Americans compete to be at the top and to beat our peers, the Moldovans it seems look at it more as a competition against the system. My host mother has explained that the testing schemes here are too hard for the kids, and that if teachers didn’t help them cheat, then the students would all fail. My comment that at some point this would have to happen if they wanted the system to change went completely unheeded. She thinks the system will never change no matter what they do or say, and thus they have to do what they can to overcome. It is eerie how much this is a metaphor for life in general in a formerly communist country, both in the Soviet times and the present. No matter what stage in life you are at, taking a look around, it seems like the only ones that are getting ahead are the ones who are willing to be a bit morally flexible.

While our camp-planning meeting ended on a largely positive note, one could easily sense that feelings had been hurt. The Americans were riled up, because we had finally been able to vent the frustrations we had experienced in watching our kids trounce all over our moral sensibilities, but getting no backup from the Moldovan adults, and the Moldovans were hurt because we had lambasted their educational system and children. That and I feel that it is a bit difficult to hear that what you have accepted as a norm in your life is morally reprehensible in someone else’s eyes. It should be an interesting camp experience to say the least.

Fast-forward a bit to today, and I find myself in even more of a pickle with this issue. I have discussed this topic with my host mother, chiding her a bit for her indiscretions. She knows my opinions, and she knows that the last volunteer who was here told me to run and hide on the day of the senior English exam, because they would corner me and pressure me to do the kids exams for them. Thus I had been planning to take a little vacation on that day, and as luck would have it I actually honestly can say that I am occupied, as I will be traveling to the capitol to greet the next round of incoming volunteers.

I was completely ratted out though, and I now am looked at as a prick for not being willing to show up to “help” the students of my village pass their exams. My host mother and the village English teacher think that I am just making up excuses, selfishly withholding my knowledge to the detriment of their sons and daughters. Possibly ruining their chances for getting into university. I wish I was exaggerating, but this is what I am getting from the pleading looks and muffled comments of the faculty. As corrupt as the educational system is here, as with just about any other government entity, I don’t know how much of a stretch this dire straights evaluation is. Grades are commonly bought or garnered due to political influence or a family’s social status. I have even been told by Moldovans not to trust a doctor under 40 because they probably bribed the schools to get their license, whereas older docs where subjected to the rigorous soviet educational system. A bit dated perhaps in their knowledge, but at least they studied when they were in school.

So here I am...the prick, not having a clue how to talk my way out of this one. I have explained that I feel no matter how bad the system is, we cannot as educators promote a system that tolerates cheating because we are essentially saying the you can do whatever is necessary to achieve what you want in life, even if it is dishonest. As you can imagine, my moral high ground doesn’t compete much with a mother’s vision of her child working in the fields because they couldn’t get into a good university.

You would think that it was all solved though, I will be out of town...end of story...I can’t help them cheat. That was what I thought too until I was sent what is claimed to be only some “sample” questions to prepare the kids for the test, and a phone call begging me to write up a few examples before I leave. Curious though that my study examples aren’t needed until the night before the exam. Ce să fac?