THE VIRTUE OF "DOING THE RIGHT THING"

There is nothing as good as doing the right things.

It was a Sunny Wednesday in the school where I teach and we were to have continuous assessment as a form of evaluating the learners' understanding of what we had taught so far. I set my questions and handed it over to the invigilator and went to another class to invigilate. After the assessment, my students came to appreciate me for the questions I gave them. They expressed that it was simple and, as a teacher, I was happy too.

When I got home and started marking the scripts, I discovered that they all wrote the same thing. They cheated and I discovered it. There is a set of students that rarely come to school. They don't have notebooks and they only come to class whenever it is time for test. These students also had the same scores with the entire class. I was angry and promised to discipline them for what they did.

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I got to the class the following week and told them what I discovered. When they saw how angry I was, they admitted that they actually cheated. Then, I asked them if what they did was right. They all chorused "No ma, we are sorry".
"Then, why did you do it?" I queried. They kept on apologizing.

The fact that they all confessed to have copied and were passing answers from one person to another made me forgive them and instead of punishing them, I gave them another question to attempt.

Most times when I see students engaging in malpractice, I feel so hurt because to them they are helping themselves whereas they are actually deceiving themselves. It hurts me more as these are the things the society is encouraging. It is pathetic that some parents do not even see anything wrong in it. Some even go to the extent of bribing teachers to make sure a child passes even though they know that child is not serious with his academics. The fact that this happens everywhere and it's not limited to the academic sector alone is a thing of concern.

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I have been hurt many times by people who fail to do the right thing. The most annoying one was an experience with one of my neighbours. It happened that our electricity was disconnected due to late payment only for one of my neighbours to connect it illegally in our absence. We returned from a journey to discover that the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) had taken our wire to their office and instead of paying #5000 ( five thousand naira) to retrieve it, we were asked to pay #15,000 (fifteen thousand naira). The guy left for months and didn't return yet the bill kept on increasing and by the time we were able to pay, we paid #25,000 ( twenty five thousand naira).

Many people know what is right but fail to do it. When they are caught, you will hear them saying, "I am sorry" or "We are sorry". No matter how degrading the society is, there is dignity in knowing what is right and doing it.

Finally, the virtue I hold in high esteem is doing the right thing. I strongly believe if we all are doing what is right, there will be less hurts and unnecessary pleas. In addition to this, the society at large will be a better place. Thank you.