Responsibility—

A Definition of the Word Responsibility

Every teacher that has ever existed has done his/her best to teach the subject of responsibility. Something about how the subject is being communicated, verbally and nonverbally, is still producing less than desirable results.

• Smokers sue cigarette companies for lung damage.

• A customer sued McDonalds for a hot coffee burn.

• Divorce lawyers thrive on the blame (adversarial) communication model, the model taught to education majors and parents alike.
  
• Teachers resort to pathetic begging and strikes for funding, blaming others for their own inability to effect satisfactory wages or student-learning through clear communication.

The above suggests that there is a distinction between saying the right words regarding responsibility, and communicating responsibly. The premise here being that when responsibility is "taught" by a teacher stuck in hypocrisy, the communication doesn't get gotten.

For example: If a teacher can't inspire his/her spouse to consistently honor the housework chores agreements, or opt for healthy choices, then anything the teacher may tell a student about integrity, keeping agreements, or responsibility are just good ideas. When a truth is delivered via hypocrisy it's heard and stored but seldom acted upon by choice.  For many the advice (wise truths) from well-meaning but hypocritical parents about agreements, lying, gossiping, or eating correctly still isn't acted upon automatically, instead, most are driven to not do what they have been "taught," what they know works.

I've yet to read a news article that describes the classroom load problem (number of students per teacher) to be the results of the collective communication skills of the administrators, staff and teachers of a school system; yet, each teacher knows the exact number of students he/she would be willing to guarantee—that each student would know the subject matter.

Never have I read an article quoting a Superintendent of Education having said,

I just don't have the communication skills to cause the community and our legislators to provide the funds it will take to get the job done as expected. 

I've never read a newspaper article quoting an educator as saying,

Our salary and funding problems and unsatisfactory SAT scores mirror my own communication skills.

What I continually read in the newspapers are reasons and blaming.

Put another way, if one is not clear about responsibility and operates from blame then what they impart nonverbally gets gotten (re-created) by the children who hang around them. Hollow, hypocritical, words about responsibility create unconscious disrespect. Students unconsciously communicate this accumulated disrespect later in life when as citizens it comes time to vote for teacher pay raises.

On the next page you will be asked to read the dictionary definition of the word responsibility. See if you can tell why it doesn't sink in. (you are not yet agreeing to do the tutorial)

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