Cheating

I don't consider myself a particularly righteous person in terms of moral superiority to others; in fact, I know I'm all too lacking in ways that are more than faintly embarrassing in someone of my age who really should know better. But cheating in a school context has always really bothered me, whether it's kids cheating in various ways on their work or the adults who are there to teach them cheating in a variety of sometimes less obvious ways.

And for part of today cheating has been very much on my mind, not with regard to any of the students I teach or the wholly estimable colleagues I work with, but as a result of coming across this piece on The Two Faces of American Education featured in the current NYRB online. If you happen to read the article you might be wondering how it got me thinking about cheating as it's by no means the most obvious aspect of the essay. But I should explain that one of the ladies featured, a certain Michelle Rhee, caught my eye earlier this year as a result of her appearance in Waiting for Superman, a documentary which features interesting commentary on all sorts of schools in the US. I sort of looked up a few articles about her after viewing the film having found her a somewhat puzzling character.

I now find her a lot less puzzling and considerably more troubling. Follow the money, as they say, and you may reach the same conclusion. Or possibly not. We live in a confusing world - one of its glories which we must learn to live with. And who am I to judge?