School honor systems, as I have lamented, really aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Now that I am in a school with a much-touted honor system, I now have an even better perspective on this. The underlying premise of an honor system is simple: If all students affirm at the time of matriculation that they will behave honorably, then they can be trusted for the duration of their enrollment. This is supposed to lead to a more open environment, one premised on the honesty of all.
In practice, it works nothing like this. On an exam that I took recently, the teacher exhorted everybody to use a sheet of paper to cover up the questions that they had already answered. In the same class, the teacher told me in private conversation that I must complete the honor pledge on a recently-submitted assignment in order to receive credit for the work. He pointed out (kindly) that he was quite certain that I had not cheated, with the obvious implication being that he wanted me to jump through a hoop for the sake of doing so. The great irony, of course, is that the purpose of an honor system is to prevent the need for interactions of this nature.
Chris Kiser’s column in today’s UVa’s Cavalier Daily talks further about schools’ failure to uphold their end of the honor system agreement, and students’ failure to abide by the honor code with regard to turning in fellow students.