Preaching to the Choir

I don’t know if I believe in Karma, but I know that I don’t want to take any chances. For most of my life, and even more significantly the older I get, I want to do the right thing. My conscience weighs heavily on me almost always. Ogden Nash once said that the only way to be happy is to have "a clear conscience or none at all" and I fully believe it.

A few weeks ago it was my grandmother’s birthday, and on the way to the party I stopped at Costco to purchase a few novels for her. Costco sticks these big price stickers on the front of their books and, when I got into the car, I peeled the stickers off the novels. One of the novels had a textured, matte cover and the sticker left a big, messy sticker stain on the top right corner of the front cover. It looked terrible and, when we stopped at Target to get a gift bag I purchased an identical copy of the book, one without the enormous price tag on the cover. The next day I returned the book with the nasty sticker glue to Costco and the woman accidentally reimbursed for the wrong item, giving me ten dollars too much. I walked away from the counter with the extra ten dollars, but then a deep feeling of guilt overcame me and I promptly returned to the counter to correct the cashier’s mistake.

One of the hardest parts of my current job as a high school teacher is choosing to do the right thing. Not only because the kids often make idiotic choices, but more importantly because many adults in the school system would rather sweep a problem under the rug or take an unethical approach to a dilemma, rather than deal with an irate parent or have to enforce consequences.

In college, I had a health teacher who literally gave out the answers to the tests before we took them. This was a class designed for athletes, taught by one of the college’s football coaches. I can’t say I learned much in the class, except the unsettling fact that favoritism and nepotism are very real and sometimes brains have nothing over brawn, even in the educational system where brains should be the, um, point. Sadly, I’ve discovered that high school is the same way. Integrity is often overruled by convenience, especially among some adults who find winning more important than playing fairly. I have no other way to describe these adults than this: pathetic.

Several of my best students know about this website because I would often post at late night robotics meetings or during class when my teacher aides were hovering around my desk. These are the kids nobody fights for. Nobody needs to because good integrity does not need to be defended. They do what’s right even when it is not popular. Why is it that some of their supposed adult role models are still hung-up on what’s popular, even if it is not right?

It is a high school tradition for the graduating students to leave “Senior Wills” or advice and memories to their friends and teachers. This didn’t get done this year, for whatever reason, but If I were doing a Senior Will, this is what I would say to my kids, the ones who do the right thing despite any popularity penalty:

Confucius said, “to know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.” May you never be cowardly, may you always be honorable, and may Karma, if it exists, carry only good things back around to you.

I hope that, in the middle of this huge popularity contest called life, they can hear me.

Comments

[Benji]

I hear you loud and clear Mrs. Wallace. This is truly an inspirational blog, it makes me feel valued when I hear you fighting for us. I appreciate all you do for me and I think I can speak for others when I say you're more than a teacher, but a life mentor. Believe in Karma as an alternative to hell, I think people need to live in the here and now, and there is a balance in life, if you compromise society's values something has to balance that. Two of my top values are justice and education, you have helped me to achieve both of those more and more everyday.


Well anyway speaking of Karma, today I am driving down to Hollywood to see "An Inconvenient Truth" I'll let you know how it was.

[Zandria]

Amen. Well said. :)

[royal leisure]

Well said!

[Alexandrialeigh]

Lovely post -- I was feeling preachy yesterday, too.

[Bethany]

Aw, powerful post Janet. I always get weepy around graduation time. It's just hard for me to accept change, and even though I graduated nine years ago, I still have cousins in high school, one who graduated this weekend and I can't believe how fas time changes. You are a truly good persona dn that's getting harder and harder to come by. Although I think that Kharma is BS, I believe that good people teach and show and in return feel the reward of that in watching the preceeding generations grow up to be good people, I guess thats a kind of "kharma" in the non-new agey sense.

[alfredsmom]

I am a big kharma believer. It's funny, back in the day I SO would keep the $10 and not feel guilty. I cant say with a clear conscious that I would definetly return the money today ( although *I think* I would), but I would feel damn guilty about it and when something bad happened, I would remember that $10 that wasnt suppose to be mine.

[Cindy]

I hear you loud and clear. Too bad that we, as high school teachers, are expected to not only teach our content to students that may or may not care about British literature, but to be nurses, confessors, moms (or dads), bankers, cheerleaders, and from time to time, moral compasses for a generation that has not been taught how to do the right thing because all they have seen is the wrong. I believe in Instant Karma (thanks, John Lennon) and I really believe that someday, somehow, this will come back to bite them all in the butt. :)

[nicole]

What goes around, comes around. xoxo

[Erin]

Being a teacher (or administrator) should make otherwise dishonest people be honest.

I can't count the number of times that I look at HH and say, "No, I can't do that. What if one of my kid's saw me do that?" I'M more of a role model than some of their parents. Sad really.

Excellent points.

P.S. Karma is a boomerang.

[Maribeth]

I'll be off for a while and unable to comment. But I'll try to be reading on bloglines to stay up to date!

[lissa]

If only there were more teachers like you.

[Robin]

Great post. I always wanted to be a high school English teacher, majored in secondary English Education but then switched majors for more money (what a sick sad world we live in.) I am happy that you are a teacher. At least I know there is one good seed out there teaching tomorrow's leaders. Although the "Otter Shots" could be a little sketchy :) HA HA HA just kidding.