To be able to discuss cheating openly and with concern for how it affects our daily and future lives.

OVERVIEW

LEADER PREPARATION

• Before you begin the discussion, familiarize yourself with articles and studies on cheating and ethics.
• Prepare different activities that allow for cheating to occur, e.g., quiz or games.
• Bring together all necessary supplies and props.

GROUP BUILDING

Open with a game of new fangled basketball. After picking the teams, ask one person on each team to make up a new rule for the game. Enforce both new rules for both teams. After a few minutes of play, ask for two more rules from two different people and resume play. Enjoy the chaos as each person begins to make up rules that benefit their team or themselves. Do not moralize the game.

GROUP PRESENTATION

Hand out to participants a very difficult quiz. Clearly state in the instructions that teens are to work alone. Before the meeting, write the correct answers on one—in pencil—and then lightly erase the answers. Shuffle this quiz in the stack of the others that you are passing out for the students to complete. Excuse yourself from the room for a minute or stand at a distance. Return just as students are finishing the quiz. Ask the kids for the answers. At least one student—and maybe more—will do incredibly well. Then explain what you have done.

To put the newly discovered cheaters at ease, find out just how much the other youth cheat. Have everyone stand. Tell people who have not cheated at all in the last 12 months to sit. Then ask for those who have not cheated in the last 6 months to sit. In the last 2 months, the last four weeks, two weeks, two minutes. As you do this keep an eye out for the 50/50 point, where half are standing and half are sitting down (a good place to end the game).

GROUP DISCUSSION

Guide the discussion in the general direction of the following easy outline. Memorize it so you do not need a ‘cheat sheet.’

• What is cheating?
• How common is it around you?
• What is wrong with cheating?
• What should happen to cheaters?
• What is your standard going to be?

With the closing question, provide paper and pencils for teens to write out an honor statement to which they commit themselves. For example, a teenager could write, "Today, I make this promise to myself, and my youth group that I will not cheat in school this year, no matter what happens." Specific forms of cheating may be mentioned if the teen is especially tempted in one particular area. Cheating at home (taking credit for work that one did not do, blaming others for work that one did) and work (time clock) may also be used in the statement. Do not let cop-out with phrases such as "I will try," "I will work at it," or "If possible, I will..." A commitment to future behavior should be clear and concise. It should not contain an escape clause such as, "Unless it is a real emergency."

WRAP-UP

Discussion leader: write down your commitment statement as well. Let the young people know that this is an effective tool for changing future behavior. Past mistakes can be forgiven. Let young people know that cheating habits can be hard to break and that you and the group are willing to stand by them and help them to change.