To Whom should we turn for solutions?

There is an article by Jeremy Meyer in today's Denver Post that just knocked my socks off. The article cites a survey of 24,000 U.S. students at 70 high schools. The survey shows that 95% of students admit that they have "participated in some form of cheating, whether tests, plagiarism, or copying homework! The conducter of the survey said the students justified their cheating.

The article goes on to say that some "educational psychologists" (here we go again) say that they "fear high-stakes tests and grade-point averages that determine college acceptance are leading students to cheat." Okay, secular psychologists, by that line of reasoning, then does that mean that there should be no high standards that we expect the little darlings to strive for? The article cites yet another study that concludes that "cheating in high school is a significant predictor of lying and cheating across a wide range of adult situations." We needed a study for this conclusion?

As soon as I finished reading this article I sat down with my sons. I told them that we expect them to try hard, but that if they try their hardest and do their homework to prepare, and still do not achieve a high score, we will be proud of them anyway for preparing and trying hard. Greg told me that he did not know how to proceed once with a math problem, so he just wrote in "blah, blah, blah" on the answer sheet to that particular problem.

I showed the boys the Denver Post article, where it says if you convince yourself that it is okay to cheat on one thing, then you are likely to cheat in other areas of your life, too. I told them that there is a solution: that God is always with us, always willing to forgive us, and if we learn to trust God, He will show us how to behave properly in any situation. I warned them that they might have to keep on asking God to forgive them, because it is just our human nature to keep making the same mistakes over and over. If they finally learn to just let go of behaviors that are not working well for them, and trust God to show them a better way, He will always be willing to do that.

I asked Greg if he knew of a better solution to that math problem. He said, "I could just leave it blank, and then tell the teacher that I don't understand how to do that problem." I agreed with Greg that his idea was a good one, but I also know of our sinful nature, and that we need to keep asking forgiveness and learn to trust God to show us The Way.