To Cheat Or Not To Cheat
Invigilating my students while they wrote their Business English Exam last Friday, I realised how complacent I have become in Germany. Instead of like a few years earlier standing like a hawk over them, I was sitting at my desk marking. Now in my own defence I should add I was pretty weak and sick on this day. However German students and pupils are absolutely notorious for cribbing from each other and yet I was not going to even try and find out if they did. Unlike Anglo-Saxon countries where one can be expelled from an institution for cheating during an exam, it is by no means seen as an a remotely serious crime in this country. No much worse, most Germans (including my own children) can relate some pretty hair-raising stories of either copying from others during exams or being put under such social pressure to put your exam paper in such a way that others can copy from you. Even my brainy husband did not escape this pressure of others copying from him at his elite Bavarian Gy...