Personal Responsibility is Wrong? Really??

    So let’s return to the Breakfast Club, shall we? I know, that's not very original but it’s the best I can do this morning! As I have opined before in this space, the club is a group of friends of mine with varying interests, professions, and hobbies. The professions and hobbies don’t always intersect, but we share many common interests, which tends to make for interesting discussions over our heart-healthy breakfasts including, but not limited to, three-egg omelets of all kinds, French toast, pancakes, slabs of ham and bacon, and of course...2% milk! If that’s heaven, I just might start believing!

    All of a sudden, after washing down a mouthful of something with his orange juice, our friend Fred (not his real name) right out of the blue asks, “Is there a problem with saying ‘personal responsibility’?” Trust me, this is how these dopey conversations usually begin.

    “What do you mean?” we replied.

    Now, Fred is a politically middle-of-the-road kind of guy who, lately, has been deeply involved in bipartisan efforts to address chronic absenteeism (his profession is in the education sector). “I keep saying it’s a big part of getting kids to school, but I’ve been surprised by the pushback. Some people seem to think it’s offensive or even racist! Should I stop saying it?” We all immediately sighed. The question sparked some ugly flashbacks. Thankfully, it seems we’re past the worst of the craziness.

    What do I mean? Well, Fred has told us before of things like the “Equity Collaborative” which up until just recently taught educators that “independence” and “individual thinking” are racist hallmarks of “white individualism”. Then Mark chimed in about an op-ed he read about the KIPP charter schools ditching the mantra “Work Hard, Be Nice” as a legacy of white supremacy culture. Chris jumped in and regaled us with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History debuting an online guide for “Talking about Race” that tagged “hard work” and “self-reliance” as troubling “assumptions” of “white culture.” In each of these cases (and so many others), “forward-thinking” reformers insisted that longstanding, widely shared values were suddenly wrong, if not, evil ways of thinking that needed to be abandoned.

    Fred then reminded us of a story he had mentioned a while ago of how toxic things got a couple of years ago, when the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education invited financial self-help guru Suze Orman to keynote their annual conference, only to go batshit when she urged the audience to take charge of their financial futures. Scandalized by this seemingly innocent and prudent advice, the organization apologized for Orman making remarks “offensive” to the audience’s “lived experiences” and declared:

    “We cannot discuss financial literacy without first acknowledging the inequitable and unjust systems that have prevented Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Queer, Trans, first-gen, low-income, and many other historically minoritized and marginalized communities from attaining education and generational wealth.” Really?

    Fortunately, you can tell that a lot of the most toxic stuff is behind us because so many who had endorsed this crap are now happy to let it just fade away, while insisting no one ever really meant it all that seriously. It’s nice to see common sense reasserting itself. But it’s not like the aversion to timeworn values arose out of the blue, and it certainly hasn’t gone away completely. In fact, even as anti-responsibility sentiment has started to recede on the left, it appears to be gaining steam on the populist right among prominent influencers who regard self-centered, performative “toughness” as a good thing and self-restraint as a sign of weakness.

    Fred said that he had noticed, but not fully appreciated this whole thought process about 5 years ago when he was giving a talk somewhere. He had expressed concern that too many schools had gotten squeamish about teaching foundational values. An audience member asked what he had in mind, and he cited respect, personal responsibility, and timeliness as examples. The audience member responded that she found the phrase “personal responsibility” offensive, saying, “It sounds like you want to blame students if they don’t succeed.” Sometimes I weep for the future of this nation.

    It became clear she had plenty of company. After doing a little homework on my own and doing a search using the words “Education and Responsibility” it seems that over the last 10 years many in education have come to view “responsibility” as old-fashioned and unsophisticated. While those who decry it generally shy away from a nihilistic implication that no one should ever be held responsible for their actions, they come pretty damn close. This has bled into debates on everything from school discipline to student loans.

    It would seem to me that retreating from the principle of responsibility is to abandon any serious commitment to teaching or learning. After all, like many things in life, schooling is inevitably a handshake between students and teachers, and between families and schools. Let me quote the education scholar, Frederick Hess: “It’s hard not to notice that—when it comes to parenting and preschool, to communities and colleges, or to churches and child care—pretty much everything rests on the expectation that each person will do their part.” Makes sense, right? I mean, if we’re unwilling to embrace that principle, then students, parents, and teachers can only be asked to do what they happen to feel like doing on any given day. This is not good, especially if you are one of those trying to tackle real, roll-up-your-sleeves problems, like chronic absenteeism.

    Arguing that we can’t expect certain students or parents to be responsible for their actions is the rankest kind of prejudice, otherwise known as the bigotry of low expectations. It suggests that they are nothing more than passive victims of circumstance, incapable of participating in the democratic social compact. It denies them agency and strips them of dignity. Yet public officials today are loathe to challenge families on this count, fearing they’ll appear insensitive or tone-deaf.

    This reticence is as unnecessary as it is destructive. After all, one can endorse personal responsibility without denying that we’ve too often done wrong by students, or that schools have their own responsibilities (ones that, for instance, they conspicuously failed to honor during the pandemic). In fact, the more one insists that students and families must be part of the solution, the more credibly one can hold everyone else to that same standard.

    Look, are some people offended by the phrase “personal responsibility”? Absolutely. Should we stop saying it out of deference to their sensibilities? Hell, no. Students need to be in school and schools need to make sure it’s worthwhile to them. That’s the starting point. Educators like Fred and his colleagues should try to speak precisely and address reasonable concerns. But combating the biggest challenges in schooling, like chronic absenteeism and learning loss, begins not with apps or new tutoring models. It begins with a culture of responsibility on the part of students, parents, and educators. Leaders need to say that. 

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com