When I’ve administered tests here in Mexico it seems almost impossible for the students to take it without talking to someone. Today I had to administer a math test to one of my groups and I can’t even take a guess at how many times I had to tell them to stop talking. A bunch told me that they didn’t know what something meant, I think expecting me to help them, even though I let them know before they began that I had no idea how to do what was on the exam. I took away from one student a pencil with multiplication tables all over it. I took away two exams from students who couldn’t stop talking to each other; one of those students said that she was just explaining something to her classmate.
I had thought that this “cheating phenomenon” was due to my students’ lack of understanding of what cheating is and the lack of academic integrity the school exerts. I don’t know if the “cheating phenomenon” is more pervasive than I would have hoped or thought, but Andi has told me that the students at the university where she teaches here also talk while taking tests.
I am not so naïve to think that cheating doesn’t occur in the States – I know that it is just as prevalent there; it’s just different. In the States, I have the students face forward when taking tests, so that I can see that their eyes only look at their own exam. I walk around and make sure there aren’t any inappropriate papers on their desks or on the floor or writing on hands, arms, shoes or wherever else they can think of to conceal answers. In the States, I often have to give different versions of tests since the students tell each other what’s on the exam. Academic integrity is a grey line for students on both sides of the border, and beyond. While the offense is the same, the motives differ: The pressure to succeed drives students to cheat in Wilmette, while in Iztapalapa, it’s more likely that a lack of understanding what is on an exam pushes students to ask one another for help while taking a test. The difference of motives goes far beyond cheating, this is a great cultural difference. In the U.S. people are fixated on the future, while in Mexico, people are more stuck on the immediate.
