Lesson In Honesty Resounds Even Beyond The Classroom

My alma mater has an honor code that is respected throughout the university. Freshmen pledge to do their own academic work with integrity and to report those who do not to the student-run honor council.

Student signatures remain on display in the lobby of the Sarratt Student Center throughout their four years at the university. Alongside the signatures is a statement of the honor code as well as the words of the man for whom the building is named. Madison Sarratt, longtime dean of men at Vanderbilt University and a teacher in the mathematics department, died in 1978. He wrote, “Today I am going to give you two examinations, one in trigonometry and one in honesty. I hope you will pass them both, but if you must fail one, let it be trigonometry, for there are many good [people] in this world today who cannot pass an examination in trigonometry, but there are no good [people] in the world who cannot pass an examination in honesty.”

Sarratt’s former students still speak of the effect those words have had on their adult lives.

 — Gaynelle Doll, “The Nature of Virtue,” Vanderbilt Today (Summer – Fall 1999)

Looking Past The Negatives

He was always in trouble, so when the parents of the junior high boy received another call to meet with his teacher and the principal, they knew what was coming.

The teacher said, “Thanks for coming. I wanted you to hear what I have to say.”

The father waited, thinking about what defense he could use this time. The teacher proceeded to go down a list of ten positive affirmations, or potential benefits, of the junior high “troublemaker.” When she finished, the father said, “And what else? Let’s hear the bad things.”

“That’s all I wanted to say,” she said.

That night when the father got home, he repeated the conversation to his son. Almost overnight, the troublemaker’s behavior changed. All because a teacher looked past the negatives to see the potential in a young man.

 — Peter Lord, former pastor, Park Avenue Baptist Church, Titusville, Florida