It's far more honorable to fail than to cheat.

        Oh! What a great line! The time I came across this beautiful line and understood its meaning, I've made it the principle of my life. I've even explained the meaning of this line to my students. And, many of them got influenced and started abiding by this way of thinking. They have taken a pledge not to use unfair means in the exams ever in their life. This line shakes your heart and just wakes you up. You feel a kind of challenge. You feel a kind of force from within to make it the principle of leading your life.

       This line has been taken from a well-known poem, 'Abraham Lincoln's letter to his son's teacher'.  Abraham Lincoln was one of the most popular presidents of the USA.

        A number of beautiful things have been conveyed to teachers in this poem. We'll deal with the whole poem in some other blog. Here, I'd like to stick to the one sentence that's my favorite. 

         It's exam time these days. Students are not happy with the exams being taken as they have not studied properly due to the lingering lock-down period caused by the COVID -19. Their syllabus has not been completed. Even if the online teaching was facilitated, most of the students didn't get benefited from that. Having said that, students got full time for self-studies. And, schools have been instructed to promote students in next classes. Whatever the situation may be, malpractices must not be practiced in exams. Using unfair means in the exams is in no way in favor of students. It seems to students they can get good marks. But that's only on the surface. As a matter of fact, losses that they are not able to see are much higher. 

          The students who use unfair means in exams can never rise in their own eyes. They will have low self-esteem. They will suffer from lack of confidence. On the other hand, the one who follow the principle, 'It's far more honorable to fail than to cheat.' will have high self-esteem. They get elevated in their own eyes. Because of having self-respect, they can make eye-contacts while talking to others. 

          Moreover, leading life by a principle like this instills a feeling of greatness in your heart. Mere instructions can't do the work. Students need to be prepared by using such elevating principles. The principle we are discussing are equally applicable in other walks of life apart from exams.

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