The Fine Line Between Cheating And Helping

"Helping” the idea presented could be summarize as the following, Puerto Ricans called cheating as "helping" your friend or your neighbor.  By definition “help” means to make it easier for someone to do something by offering services or resources.  Puerto Ricans took that literally and applied it to any circumstance, even during exams.  For Mr. Cooper and of all the other "Continentals" which are the American professors, this helping behavior was simply cheating.  Puerto Ricans didn't see it that way, for them what matter the most was that everyone could get the right answer to get the good grades and pass the classes.  One of the Puerto Rican faculty members once told the continentals their purpose for allowing this "helping behavior".  He said, "You miss the point completely. I'm interested in my students learning the right answer to the questions.  If they can learn more easily by copying from a neighbors paper than they can from me , what difference does it makes? You people don't really care whether a student learns anything or not.  You're only interested in how he learns it." It was hard for Mr. Cooper and the rest of the American English teachers to understand the roots of the cheating problem, until they discovered that this behavior was taught since first grade. Teachers told their students to look at their neighbor’s paper if they didn't understand.  It is clear that for Puerto Ricans, it was normal to cheat since they saw it as help.

This helping behavior started since the early childhood of the students.  Puerto Ricans were raised in a cooperative mentality.  You help others so that in the end everyone's gets a good grade.  No matter how unfair it may be to give the answers or do the job for others.  Puerto Rican students see it as okay to help their friends because they like them.  On the contrary, Americans were raised with a competitive mentality and for them you only need to look out for yourself.  The Education in the US is like a competition between you and your rival classmates.  Ultimately, your goal is to be the best in your class.  It's hard to choose which model works better but I think the competitive one creates a stronger personality.  With that mentality, you always want to strive for excellence.  It does not mean you cannot help others.   You can helped them understand the material by explaining how to do it and not by giving them the answers.  The true way of learning is by understanding what's been taught and practicing not by cheating.  At the end of the day, if you cheat you really don't learn anything.