A recent Fox News article reported that a college professor in Mississippi went viral on TikTok after posting a video showing that 32 of his 35 students were caught cheating on their midterms by using AI to write their assignments.
What caught my attention was only partly the number of students who cheated—we all know that cheating with AI is becoming more commonplace—but I didn’t realize the percentage was that high. What struck me most, however, was the professor’s response to it.
According to the article, Professor Jason Gibson arranged to catch his students cheating, and he did so simply to make a point, not to punish them. He wasn’t seeking to teach them an important moral lesson, nor was he looking to safeguard against this behavior for future assignments. He had no desire to wage an ongoing battle to eliminate cheating in his classroom.
So subsequently, he didn’t dock their grades significantly for the serious infraction of cheating on a college midterm. Instead, he said he just wanted his students to know, “Hey y’all, I see this. I notice it.”
If you’re blinking in confusion right now, don’t worry, so am I.
He also announced that he would never again try to catch his students cheating on an exam using AI. This was a one-time deal. Because God forbid he should be accused of being a mean teacher by the internet.
You may be wondering what the point is of telling kids, ‘I see you, but you won’t be punished’? It’s a nonsensical statement. It means nothing. If anything, it is tacit approval of the behavior because a teacher who announces that they recognize something immoral is happening in their classroom but won’t do anything to stop it is, in essence, giving their approval to that behavior.
Even though these students intentionally cheated on a major midterm exam, 8 of them ended the year with an A, 14 with a B, 10 with a C, and only 2 with a D and 1 with an F. Typically, failing a midterm used to dock your grade by around 20-35% in a course. That meant it was almost impossible to fail a midterm and still end your year with an A. It was even more improbable to end the year with a good grade if you were caught plagiarizing or cheating on a major exam. You would likely have failed the entire course and faced possible suspension or expulsion from a university for doing so.
Not now, however. Now we are more evolved. Now, cheating is seen more as inevitable than unacceptable. Kids and young adults are just going to cheat. You can’t really punish them for it. Why would you think punishment would help curb a behavior anyway, just because it curbed bad behaviors in the past? No, we now recognize that punishment doesn’t do anything, and that cheating really isn’t so bad. A little pep talk might do the trick, but if it doesn’t, no harm done. Just the way it goes. Time to move on.
At the root of this problem is the fear that parents and teachers have of allowing children to fail. They are afraid of allowing children or young adults to face the consequences of their choices. Teachers may at least have some excuse: the schools that employ them might pressure them to pass students who cheat. They also need an administration willing to enforce rules and standards. If a school is more concerned with making money than with instilling virtue in their students, then cheating will go unpunished, and teachers will be restrained from administering justice in their classrooms.
But while teachers may have some excuse, parents have none. Parents are not under the power of a school administration, nor do they answer to a board of education. They are the masters of their own households, and they should be ensuring their children are honest and law-abiding citizens. They should be instilling virtue in their children.
Gentle parenting, gentle schooling—the results are equally catastrophic. The sinful nature needs real consequences for bad behavior because that’s how it is deterred. The reality is that children will be drawn to behaviors that are easier, more pleasurable, or immediately rewarding unless deterred by consequences and taught a fear of the Lord.
We do a disservice to children and young adults when we withhold consequences in an effort to show false mercy. Mercy should be linked with repentance. If you are in a position of authority and you catch someone engaging in wrongdoing but immediately show them mercy without justice or consequences, you are not demonstrating the essential virtues of justice or prudence.
What that means is that you are not, in fact, showing them right mercy since they have not repented and turned from their evil behavior.
You are showing sentimentality, or, more accurately, you are feeling merciful but are without mercy. It is unmerciful to allow a person under your authority to continue harming themselves or others.
We need to stay awake and aware of these societal lies that creep in and urge us to simply accept the evil before us. We cannot allow evil to become acceptable. It is unacceptable to cheat, unacceptable to lie, and unacceptable to withhold punishment under the pretense of mercy.
