Day 2

I wrote a paper for a University of Virginia graduate class in 1968 where I discussed the need of educators to focus on responsibility as a philosophy of education. It was published ten years later in Clearing House as "Responsibility as a Philosophy of Education." William Wade, 1978. In it I lamented that if we did not do something to stem the tide of denied liability, we would end up with students who were unable to accept the responsibility for their learning or take control of their own lives. So, here we are thirty-three years later with students who won't meet deadlines, can't set their own schedules, and have an aversion to authority. It starts in elementary school, grows dramatically in high school, and is consistently enabled in college. 

I have allowed students who had to have their car tires rotated on test day, to make up that test at a later date. I have also given an incomplete grade to a student who was on vacation during final exams so that student could make up that missed final after the semester was over. What was I thinking? What was I doing? I should have known better. I pretended to believe I saw it coming. Yet, I encouraged the student to learn and enjoy learning by giving them chance after chance to not do the work on time and to turn it in when they felt like it. The elementary teacher tells the student "They won't let you get by with this in high school." The high school teacher tells them, "College has a firmer policy on late work. You better learn it now if you expect to succeed when you get there." College teacher tell the student, "The work place is unforgiving, and your must become a responsible member of society or you will not make it out in the real world." And we wonder why we have people entering the workforce who do not understand a work ethic or how to control their own destiny. We could blame the student but, by definition that is not a very strong argument. We are the teacher; they were the student.The need to deny liability and not accept responsibility for one’s actions probably started with "There are extenuating circumstances over which I have no control." We taught that. Technology has certainly added to the force of that belief. With the realization that life and technology happens, we began to give the student a break when they had "extenuation circumstances." They grew.