Article February 6, 1995 Issue

Discussing honesty

Patricia I. Wilson

A school art room is full of all sorts of interesting bits and pieces of card and colors, dye and drawings, paper and paints. It is full of little temptations, also. As a busy art teacher, I had many opportunities to talk about honesty in my classroom. I felt there was never enough discussion of this subject. Parents and teachers seemed to assume that young people had a clear sense as to what honesty meant. Yet there was also an acceptance, even an expectation, that youngsters would be dishonest.

I often explained how everything in the classroom had to be paid for out of the budget my department was given at the beginning of the year. "But it's not your money!" the class would say. "So it doesn't really matter if something goes missing." It was obvious that my classes' concept of honesty contained many shades of gray!

As it happened, our school motto was "Integrity." Did they know, I asked them, that this word meant wholeness? Would you be whole if you were doing even a little bit of stealing? Would you trust a person who stole small things, with something valuable and big?

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