A professor's heartfelt reflection on empathy and second chances in education went viral on social media when he explained how a childhood lesson affected the way he dealt with a cheating student.
Bhubnesh Yadav, an Assistant Professor at Delhi University's (DU) Daulat Ram College, posted the story on LinkedIn, titled "The Time I Got Caught Cheating."
In his post, he discussed an incident from 2007, when he was in fourth grade and was caught cheating on an English class test, India Today reports.
He expected heavy punishment or a trip to the principal's office, but was instead treated with calm understanding.
His teacher had simply told him, “I believe in you. I know you come from a good family. Do you really want your parents to feel bad because you cheated?”
“There was no shouting, no punishment — just words that hit harder than any reprimand could,” he wrote, adding that the moment stayed with him for life.
Fast forward to the current day, and the professor finds himself in a similar scenario, but this time on the opposite side of the table. While invigilating a class test, he discovered one of his students cheating using her phone, according to India Today.
This was despite having clearly stated in his instructions, “If you don’t know an answer, tell me. I’ll give you an additional question. But no cheating.”
“For a few seconds, I was furious,” he admitted, adding, “Then I remembered 2007 — that English test, that teacher, those words.”
He decided to handle the situation differently, silently taking the student's phone and answer sheet, cancelling her test, and saying nothing at the time.
Later, he pulled her aside and asked why she did it. The student, seeming nervous, replied, "Sir, I was scared, I didn't want to lose marks."
Instead of scolding her, the professor extended the same grace he had previously received. “I told her everyone deserves a second chance, like I once got. All I asked for was a promise: never again.”
Later that evening, he received an email from the student including an apology that impacted him deeply.
The professor shared the screenshot of the email in his post, which he concluded by saying, “Sometimes the real lesson isn’t in the textbook — it’s in how we respond when someone makes a mistake.”
