Fingers Crossed - June 2, 2022 | Kids Out and About Denver <

Fingers Crossed

June 2, 2022

Debra Ross

When I was in grade 8, I cheated on a social studies test. Both my friend Carey and I had been absent the day the rest of the class took it, so Mrs. Savage sent us to the school library for our makeup exams. While we were there, we collaborated on the harder questions. The next day, Mrs. Savage kept us after class to account for our results. "You're two good students," she said. "But you got exactly the same questions wrong, and that's pretty unusual." We each swore up and down that we hadn't cheated. She fixed a sorrowful eye on us, but let us go.

Shortly after, I was watching a rerun of a TV program—I don't remember which one, but it feels like it might have been Bonanza or Little House on the Prairie. In the episode, one of the minor characters had cheated to get ahead on something petty. The lead character (I wouldn't be surprised if it was Michael Landon) said, "His honor really comes cheap."

His honor really comes cheap. The phrase burned into my brain. My own honor had come really cheap, I thought to myself. I had sold it for just a couple of extra points on a social studies test.

I'm lucky: Several decades later, I can still feel the shame of both realizing what it meant that I'd cheated and also of having put a nice teacher into an awkward position. On the plus side, this incident was all it took to turn me into a non-cheater, forever. I'm grateful that I learned the lesson early, and it has served me well, in personal and business relationships, and in my relationship with myself.

My kids are tired of my Mrs. Savage story. Still, I tell a variant on it a few times each year, especially when final exams are looming: I want them to know that an honest failure beats a dishonest "success" any day of the week, and it's way more effective to convey a life lesson to kids in a here's-how-I-really-screwed up story than in a finger-pointing holier-than-thou lecture.
Debra Ross, publisher
Each time I tell the story, I'm simultaneously hoping Madison and Ella are hearing the message about honor more loudly than the one about how easy it was for their mom to get away with cheating on a test about the Roaring Twenties. Fingers crossed.

Deb