Honor Code Dbq

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Should honor codes continue to be enforced in some schools, or is there no point in preventing academic dishonesty? While honor codes should be enforced, they must be revised so that students better understand them and an environment of academic integrity is encouraged. While some “[do] not see a need for an honor code”, when done well, they play an increasingly important role in schools as they present “an environment where students and faculty [can] live in complete trust of one another” (Source B). This trust is crucial as many students, including myself, want Pennsauken High School to be “a school where [we can] feel comfortable taking an exam without worrying about someone looking at [our papers]” (Source B). To achieve this level of academic honesty, we must “convince many students, most of whom have cheated in high school, to change their behavior” by utilizing “effective ways to reduce cheating …show more content…
However, this level of integrity is yet to be achieved at the school I attend as many students “[do] not fully understand the role of an honor code” due to the disregard for educating students on cheating and plagiarism (Source B). Although it is Pennsauken High School’s goal to have honest students, some of the staff fail to recognize that “the highest levels of academic dishonesty are usually found at [schools] that have not engaged their students in active dialogue on the issue of academic dishonesty” (Source F). Without articulation on the topic of honor codes, students will fail to understand it, but if schools put more effort into educating students on this topic, it will provide students with “a clear explanation of the importance of behaving with integrity” (Source B). Pennsauken High School must also “[encourage] student involvement in developing community standards on academic dishonesty” so that more students follow the honor code (Source