Is Integrity a Thing of the Past?

Educators were convicted April 1 of racketeering and other lesser crimes related to inflating test scores of children from struggling schools. One teacher was acquitted.  CNN

Pacquiao faces possible sanctions for shoulder injury. Boxer, who lost to Mayweather, failed to disclose an 'old' shoulder injury. Aljazeera

Tom Brady likely knew of 'inappropriate activities,' Deflategate report says  CNN

These are just three recent examples that caused me to ask the question, Is integrity a thing of the past? I ask that because it seems that in no arena do we find anything to be what it's supposed to be. People are telling us one thing and doing another. I often hear the question is chivalry dead?, but I think the more important question is the one I am asking here in this post. Where has our integrity gone? Think about the tainted records of Bobby Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemons, Mark McGuire, Bernie Madoff, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and the list could go on and on, enough to fill this entire post with just names alone. All who have broken the trust of the public......our trust.

Integrity is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as (1) the quality of being honest and fair (2) the state of being complete or whole. Where has this quality gone? Do we want to win so bad that we are willing to do anything? Do we want to be rich so bad that we are willing to do anything? Do we want to be famous so bad that we are willing to do anything? Apparently so.

In Atlanta, educators were so consumed with a system that required students to be proficient, they were driven to alter test results in order to what they thought, keep their jobs or obtain their increment/raise. As a fellow educator, I can understand their desperation; however, as that old adage goes, "Two wrongs don't make a right."  Is an educational system that focuses so much on test scores wrong? In my view, yes. Is altering the results of student test scores wrong. In my view yes. Whether it is education, sports, business, law enforcement, government, politics, religion, or whatever, where has our integrity gone? Integrity has become like "Where's Waldo?"  Where's Integrity? Unlike Where's Waldo, integrity is far more important and if we've lost that, we've lost close to everything.

I don't have the answer, but I do know this, we have got to do better than this because if we don't, we are going to fall just like the Roman Empire and any other empire that fell due to the lack of morals. integrity, and compassion. I often hear that chivalry is not dead and I pray to God that integrity is not dead either. Something to critically think about.

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