“What’s the Right Thing To Do?” is a monthly column featuring ethical dilemmas with responses from students in the Greater Boston area. I am aware of the daily dilemmas students face and this column, of interest to both students and their parents, helps people openly discuss these issues and bring these ethical discussions we all face to the forefront. This concept is especially timely because we are faced with very challenging ethical dilemmas, which are even more prevalent now because of the power and influence of social media.

Your friend was feeling sick and fell asleep early. She wakes up the next morning panicking because she never completed a homework assignment. She asks if she can copy your work. What’s the right thing to do?

“I would probably give them my work because the reason for the incompletion wasn’t their fault because of irresponsibility. The repercussion of not doing one homework assignment isn’t enough to outweigh the trouble my friend would go through to explain to their teacher what happened.”
—Ariana, 11th grade, Gann Academy

“I would not give my friend the answers; rather, I would help him answer them. Because he was sick, he could not answer the questions on the homework, so I think that someone should help him with the homework. But I do not think that someone should just give him the answers, because he gains nothing from just copying down answers that he doesn’t even need to think about, as well as that he would be fully lying to the teacher saying that he did the homework. So, that’s why I think that you should help him with the homework but not let him copy it for himself.”
—Jonah, ninth grade Yeshiva Ohr Yisroel

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