Cheating Already?

The girls got ready early this morning so we were looking over Emily's tests from last week while we waited. Emily told me that the girl next to her got in trouble for copying her vocabulary test answers.

I asked, "How did the teacher know she had cheated?"

Emily writes personal notes to the teacher on some of her tests when she isn't sure about an answer. On this particular test, she had written that even though she had circled one of the words (which ended up being the correct word), she thought the answer could have been this other word because both worked (although the one she chose was the best fit).

The girl had not only copied Emily's answers, but she had also copied all of Emily's personal notes to the teacher. Keep in mind that this is only second grade! I didn't realize that kids were concerned enough about their grades at this point to start cheating. I guess it's good that it happened now rather than later so that maybe the girl learned her lesson early? Or maybe she just learned to not copy everything on the page next time....

I am concerned about Emily cheating on things as she gets older. She is such a perfectionist and hates getting wrong answers. I'll bring this up tonight at supper and see if the girl got a 0 on the test or something. Maybe Emily will figure out that it's better to get a wrong answer instead of getting caught for cheating. I can only hope and pray...