Honor

I attended a boarding school that was very proud of its Honor Code, and currently teach at another boarding school that is also very proud of its Honor Code. Thinking about the two experiences, I am amazed at how much my view of "Honor" has changed over the years. When I was in high school, honor was simple. You don't lie, steal, or cheat. Why? As much as we all said that we didn't do those things because they were "wrong", the real motivation was because we could get kicked out of school for doing them. For the vast majority of us, a true concept of honor as an internal code of ethics came much later, if at all.

In my current teaching position, I have had the privilege of serving on the school's Honor Committee for three years (faculty usually only serve for 2 years, but I got to stay on for three because of external issues). At my school, the Honor Committee is intended to be an educational body first. Our charge when hearing a case was to determine if a student would be able to learn from his or her mistakes, and with the help of the Honor Committee, be able to finish their time at the school as a full believer and participant in the Honor Code. That emphasis on education rather than punishment is a HUGE issue when hearing cases, and was often the deciding matter when it came to the final decision of whether or not we asked a student to leave the school.

I grew up in the South, where Honor is a big buzzword and everybody believes they understand what it means. While serving on the Honor Committee, I learned so much more about the nuances of Honor. I learned that, in many cultures, Honor is defined by how your actions reflect on the family. For a child raised in those cultures, it is a far bigger honor violation to do poorly on a test and to make your family look bad than it is to cheat on that test and receive a high grade you didn't really earn. In many cultures, Honor is defined by how you respond to insults to yourself or your family. "An eye for an eye" is a kind of Honor for many people.

I have my own definition of Honor, and it has very little to do with any written rules or standardized moral code. It is my own. We claim as a school that our goal is for students to develop that kind of individual internal sense of Honor, but what if that sense disagrees with mine? Hopefully we all will end up agreeing on the most important points, and can live our own individual codes without interfering with others' codes, but there will always be some kind of conflict.

What does the word "Honor" mean to you? Is it a simple set of rules? Is it a nebulous concept that is too ill-defined to have any meaning in your day-to-day life? Where did it come from? Is it really yours? I have a vivid memory from my freshman year in college of sitting in Krispy Kreme at about 3 AM after having been kidnapped by the brothers of the fraternity I was pledging. One of the brothers asked me about my religious views, and I gave him my pat answer. He responded with, "No - I didn't ask what your parents believe and what the church they took you to all your life believed. I want to know what YOU believe!" I want to turn that same question to you regarding your concept of Honor. I don't want to know what your school or your parents or your church taught. How do YOU define Honor? And looking back at your daily life, how is that definition reflected in your day-to-day actions?