As technology changes, students find new ways to beat the system
By Dan Roem
There are more cell phones than landlines in the United States of America.
That statistic became public in 2005 and the figures have only grown more disproportional since, as cell phones have, for many, become the primary contact.
Naturally, high school students, who were either just being born or were just in preschool when Microsoft introduced Windows 95 to the world, are among the most adept with wireless technology.
Students at Brentsville District High School in Nokesville are no different than other exurban teenagers across the country in that they chit-chat and send text messages via wireless devices such as cell phones.
And just as in every school, not everyone at Brentsville is just sending innocent messages like “see u at lunch” to their friends.
“Just about a month ago, I took a cell phone and the student had...just some pornographic images,” Brentsville principal Robert Scott said on Monday. “I had discovered this student had sent over 300 text messages during school.”
Lewd pictures are actually near the bottom of texting concerns for school administrators.
Scott sent out an e-mail to parents in early April outlining the larger issues, such as students using their cell phones to cheat on tests, traffic drugs in school, plan after-school fights, bully and send pornographic pictures to each other.
The principal, now in his first year at the helm of BDHS, stressed that the problems related to e-cheating and cell phone use are not “pandemic,” though he did not offer any statistics.
According to the school division's 2007-08 manual, wireless communication devices may be brought to school but cannot be used on school grounds during the day.
The written policy at Brentsville specifically states that students “may not use any electronic devices for communicating answers.”
For first offenses, cell phones displayed by students during the day are typically just taken away and students are allowed to pick them up at the end of the day. Parents must pick them up the second time.
“Most often, the parents say, 'Keep it for the rest of the year,'” said Scott.
Three violations result in suspension.
Banning cell phones from school grounds altogether is not an option Scott is interested in pursuing.
“I wouldn't want to punish 1,600 people because a handful of kids made bad decisions,” said Scott. “The tough part is the students are pretty good at keeping this, the texting, hidden.”
Brentsville senior Julianna Willis, president of the Student Activities Council, said she thinks her peers have “kind of mastered the art of trying to conceal their cell phones.
“[They will] lean over as if they're getting something from their bag,” said the Virginia Tech-bound senior.
Some are even clever with how they go about e-cheating.
For instance, Scott noted friends of students can simply log on to Google outside the classroom, find exam answers, and send them back to their test-taking friends who have silenced their phones.
Camera phones have made it all the easier, as friends in remote locations can simply send images of completed tests or answer sheets to each other.
As technology changed over the years, so did the way students cheat.
“I knew a guy who used to take the guts out of his watch,” said Scott, referring to his time in high school in the early 1980s. “He could write legibly smaller than anyone.”
In the 1990s, Texas Instruments TI-83 graphing calculator simultaneously revolutionized math and cheating.
While the users could graph out various amounts of data and figure out sines, cosines, and tangents by just pressing a few buttons, those same users could also store information in the form of letters and numbers that they could then pull up on tests.
Eventually, Virginia teachers caught on, and before students take major exams such as the Standards of Learning tests, some have required all calculators be cleared of previous information.
“The most difficult part, I think, is following through every time we see a cell phone out,” Scott said of the latest cheating problem, though he reckoned the hand-written “cheat-sheet” will always be a mainstay for cheaters.
Asking teachers to stop instructing their students to check an offender's cell phone is a hassle to the faculty and student body alike, he explained.
But cell phone use is more common among students who are simply bored in class.
Willis opined that paying attention in class “actually makes the time [go by] a lot quicker than pulling out the cell phone every five minutes to see if you have a text message.”
The most bizarre instance of texting-abuse Scott said he came across was a “volleyball” text amongst students in the same class who were typing messages to each other over their cell phones.
Call it the modern version of passing notes.
As for cheaters, Scott had some candid advice.
“If you spend as much time studying as you do programming information into your cellular phone,” you'll improve your test scores, he said.
“The whole point of not having cell phones in the classroom is so you can learn,” added Willis.