Responsibility is a word that I must use at least fifty times a week around our school as I deal with students. This is such an important part of life and relationships among people that I cannot ignore teaching this concept.
One of the first lessons new students to our school must learn is this: “With freedom comes responsibility.” Our school is so unusual, students are overwhelmed the first few days as they see all the freedoms they are allowed. However, they soon learn that we do hold them responsible for taking care of games, technology, and observing rules of behavior. Yes, they have recesses (even secondary school) and many choices in their electives. However, misuse of either of these and or the equipment etc. provided for them results in a loss of the privileges.
The preschoolers also learn that coming to school means they are responsible for putting their coats and backpacks in the proper cubby and their folders in the return box. One of our previous teachers began the practice of mounting photos of the toys placed in each shelf so children could match where each one belonged after play. Oh yes, there are those who stand helplessly while the parent does everything for them. We explain what expectations we have and how the students are able to do these simple acts of responsibility. We also explain how gifted children are masters at letting the parent do all of the “grunt” work for them. I am proud to say the students in our preschool are usually very responsible.
I once read that you can tell who the school principal is because he/she is the one whose desk is stacked with piles of papers etc. but he/she never walks down the hall and ignores a piece of trash, litter, etc. He always stops and picks it up! Not so for children! The first words out of their mouths when asked to pick up a piece of litter is, “It’s not mine!”
I have told teachers that it is important to have the classroom area clean so that students will keep it that way. If it starts messy and littered, the students feel another piece of trash on the floor will not matter. Needless to say, I have to constantly remind students that a tidy room is important for everyone’s benefit. “Tuck chairs under the tables when they leave in case of a fire,” is one of my mantras. This act of responsibility came to me because as a child in St. Louis public schools, I was among thousands of students who were made to watch the sad slides of firemen carrying the bodies of about 20 children killed in a school fire when the first child tripped over something and the rest of the students fell over her body and all were burned to death. The firemen made a believer out of me!
Our school lunch line was taking an enormous amount of time to get the serving done because many students couldn’t name the food they wanted on their plates. I’m not talking about primary students. I’m talking about students in second through fifth grades. It seems their parents must choose everything for them, or they eat out so often they only know brand name foods or specialty order meals by number. Mrs. Saintcross and I have insisted that students learn the names of food and tell us what they want. (Yes, I’m talking about names like potatoes, carrots, green beans, peaches and oranges.) Believe it or not, they’ve met our challenge and we cut serving time in half...leaving much more time for lunch free time.
The hardest act of responsibility which I have to teach students is being willing to accept responsibility when we commit a wrongful act. I have always had a few students who would rather choke than admit they have done anything wrong. Often times, I have a double task because some parents excuse rather than correct their child. Those students whose parents almost always made excuses for their child’s lack of responsibility usually found life difficult in their later years. I have the images of many of these students written in my mind. It’s not that I desire to remember them, it’s that many of them faced consequences which ranged from lonely lives to jail and death. It’s because of them that I take the word RESPONSIBILITY very seriously. It will always be a major part of my teaching career.
- Kay