Copying is necessary to survival in school.

A: Could you please step out of the room while I have a private word with those teachers of whom you speak? Thank you.

Thanks for making my life more difficult! Let's forget, for a moment, that one of our jobs as teachers is to encourage our students to think independently, and that encouraging regurgitation undermines our role as teachers of citizens. Let's also ignore the way that researchers in all disciplines argue constantly over the meaning of terms or the fact that terms are abbreviations for concepts and not the concepts themselves. Consider only the very limited issue of professional courtesy.

• When you mark students down for using a phrase that is different from but means the same as your preferred answer, you teach them that understanding ideas in their own way is less important than guessing how closely they need to parrot back what you have said or assigned. They are then left with few skills when I ask for them to explain ideas in their own words.
• When you construct tests to distract students into choosing the wrong answers based on verbal nuances rather than distinctions based on key concepts, students learn that classes are contests to be won. Then they too often have no compunction about playing loose with "the rules" and are less likely to see the meaning behind what we ask.

Even on the limited basis of "don't make the next teacher clean up after your mess," failing to give students practice (and decent feedback) on such critical skills as paraphrasing and explaining complex ideas is failing as a teacher.

You there—I saw you eavesdropping. You think that the existence of poor teachers means you do not need to follow the rules others follow? Go ask them: they had the same lousy teachers (or others).