Would You Snitch?

In the kitchen standing next to me while watching what I was preparing, my little angel was walking me through the happenings of the day at school. It will start from the moment she arrived at school, what happened during school times and till the moment she stepped into the front door of the house.

This is a routine for us, and in between she will pause while I pep talk her on a certain situation, or let her ponder on whether the actions she had taken were wrong or right. Along the way we will sometimes laugh so hard or tears will start welling in her eyes.

What she had to tell me this time around was something that should not at all happen, or something that happens all the time in any kind of examination. Last week they had to sit for a very tough Science assessment. She was very nervous after the assessment was over and honestly let me know that she might not fare well. They were given back their paper today, she was ecstatic as she scored an unexpected high score. However, one of her girlfriends was not happy at all with her results.

What makes it more interesting was that this particular girlfriend always works on her assessment using pencil instead of a pen. Therefore, when the paper was handed back, and the answers discussed with the class, she took the opportunity to cheat by erasing the wrong answers and replacing them with the right ones, then go to the teacher and has her mark changed.

My little angel caught her doing the cheat as she was sitting next to the girlfriend, she could not believe what she was seeing, and the girlfriend just looked at her, and said “I’m sorry, but I really need the high marks”, my little angel responded with, “I can cheat too you know, but I don’t”. However, that does not stop the girlfriend from carrying on with her illicit behavior.

My little angel’s question to me, “if you were in my position, would you have told the teacher?”. It was a tough question for me, as the society of students in her current school is way too different from those back home. If you tell on someone, you will be considered as snitching, and words will go around and friends will start avoiding you, as though you are a smelly skunk.

So, what do you do in such a situation? I think what she did was right, she told the girlfriend that she can cheat too but she did not, hoping that her girlfriend will have some guilt as not to proceed with the cheat, but I guess something dies hard, especially when you are sure that you will not get caught.

Would you snitch?