Courage Versus Honor

I went to see the movie The Blind Side with the family the other day, an inspirational movie about the life of Michael Oher (who currently plays left tackle for the Baltimore Ravens). While the movie had its share of touching moments, the one that stuck with me was when Oher (or the actor playing him, anyway) wrote the final paper for his English class on the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade, focusing on the difference between courage and honor. This was his essay:

"Courage is a hard thing to figure. You can have courage based on a dumb idea or a mistake, but you’re not supposed to question adults, or your coach, or your teacher because they make the rules. Maybe they know best but maybe they don’t. It all depends on who you are, where you come from. Didn’t at least one of the six hundred guys think about giving up and joining with the other side? I mean, Valley of Death, that’s pretty salty stuff. That’s why courage is tricky. Should you always do what others tell you to do? Sometimes you might not even know why you’re doing something. I mean, any fool can have courage. But honor, that’s the real reason you either do something or you don’t. It’s who you want to be. If you die trying for something important then you have both honor and courage and that’s pretty good. I think that’s what the writer was saying; that you should try for courage and hope for honor. And maybe even pray that the people telling you what to do have some, too."

If nothing else, I think this could be used as a reason why standardized testing is a failure.