Do Honor Codes Work?
by Miki Saxon
I expect stupid from teens; it’s not really their fault, since brain science has proved that teen brains are in a process of change and during that time the frontal cortex isn’t functioning.
The frontal cortex is where ethical judgments are made, along with connecting cause and effect.
Middlebury College has always run on an honor code, as do many colleges and universities, but it is giving in.
“So the whole idea of an honor code is very honorable, quite evidently. But there’s an issue of it being actually implemented. I think there are a lot of reasons, both internal and external to Middlebury, why it’s problematic to assume that such an honor code has a degree of credibility.” –Ronald Liebowitz, Middlebury’s president
Jessica Cheung, a junior at Middlebury College who wrote this essay, sees what’s happening and isn’t happy.
“Ethical judgment, it seems, has been supplanted by our need to succeed. (…) The honor code is a model of a world I wish to live in: one of honesty, personal responsibility, learning for the right reason, choosing right in a moment of temptation. These are the very deepest and most literal things we ask a school to teach us. If all this dies, what else can survive?
Just as critical, those who aren’t cheating are loathe to report cheating when they see it.
And it isn’t just Middlebury; the problem is rampant in colleges and universities across the country, including the most elite, like Stanford and Princeton.
Granted, brain maturity doesn’t happen overnight; research says that the brain continues maturing into the twenties, but based today’s ethical attitudes and watching AFV brain maturity is occurring well into people’s forties and fifties—if at all.
The stupid and unethical things, such as cheating, that we do as children and continue to do as teens and young adults don’t suddenly stop when we hit adulthood nor do the factors that motivated their doing—competition, the desire to succeed and peer pressure.
Food for thought as we enter another election year full of lies and cheats—on all sides of the table.
Flickr image credit: Kevin Tostado
