NYT Magazine | Should My Daughter Speak Up About a Classmate’s Plagiarized Poem?

How to handle a cheating peer. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, April 5, 2019 [NYTimes.com »]( [Should My Daughter Speak Up About a Classmate’s Plagiarized Poem?]( By KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH Illustration by Tomi Um “My daughter spends half her school day in an arts high school, the other half in a traditional high school. Recently, she shared with me instances in which one of her peers had plagiarized in the arts school and cheated on exams in the regular high school. She told me that her peer is considered, by teachers in the art school, to be a superior writer. One afternoon she came home from the arts school upset because the cheater read aloud a supposedly original poem that my daughter recognized as having been written by a former student. She quietly pointed out to the cheater that she recognized the work. The cheater shrugged. I think my daughter has an obligation to stop the cheating by informing the teacher. I suggested that she photocopy the original poem and give it to the teacher and allow the teacher to reach her own conclusions. I think that my daughter is loath to do anything because in part she is upset about being upstaged by a cheater. I think this emotional sidebar is secondary to the fact that the cheater is stealing from the whole class: Writing from the cheater is not a good sample for others to workshop because it is not original and taints the learning opportunities of the other students. At the traditional high school, the cheater’s test scores may also wrongly modify the grading curve, which affects the grades of all other students in the class. My daughter’s friends independently became aware that this student is a cheater and plagiarizer. They urged my daughter to “rat” on the cheater. I wish these friends had informed teachers before now. It seems unlikely that the friends are willing or able to join together to talk to a teacher. But I really want my daughter to take a stand here. Am I wrong?” [[Read the Ethicist's reply here.]( [How A.S.M.R. Became a Sensation]( Hannah Whitaker for The New York Times By JAMIE LAUREN KEILES The brain-tingling feeling was a hard-to-describe psychological oddity. Until, suddenly, it was a YouTube phenomenon. [The Boy Was Feverish, With a Swollen Testicle. What Could He Possibly Have?]( Illustration by Cristina Daura By LISA SANDERS, M.D. A 16-year-old gets sick for weeks over the summer. When antibiotics don’t help, his mother has an idea. 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