Power To The Pupils V’s Power To The Teachers – The Responsibility of Success and Failure

Work on yourself first, take responsibility for your own progress. ~I Ching.

Should the responsibility of success or failure lay with the teacher or the pupil?

This could be viewed in various different schools of thought: the teacher takes all the flack if their pupil hasn’t bothered to put enough effort in; the pupil needs to learn how to be responsible for their own destiny; and thirdly, the teacher teaches, motivates and inspires their students, and in turn the students do their part by making the effort of trying their best.

At the moment it seems that a lot of the burden is laid on the shoulders of teachers – pressure and blame comes from all angles: the government; Ofsted; parents; and pupils themselves.  There is too much being put upon teachers to make sure their school achieves the goals set and monitored by Ofsted.  This is one of the reasons – together with lack of pay rises and autonomy – to why we are currently facing a shortage in this very important profession.

Having recently read a great article ‘Let’s get back to a time when students, not teachers, could be blamed for exam performance’ in TES, it pin pointed exactly what needs to change in schools today, and that if put into practise, would make more than one positive outcome…

Putting the power and responsibility back in the right places!

It is easy to blame a teacher for not fulfilling your expectations, and sometimes you don’t get the teacher that works for your child.  However, as a parent it is also your responsibility to make sure your child is on track, and to teach them to take charge of their learning.  It is of course easier to guide some children than others, but as parents we have a responsibility to lead them in the right direction.  If they don’t learn to have responsibility and ownership, there is not a solid foundation for them to grow and develop, and they may end up having a shaky start to adult life when it comes to taking their own lead.

Give them the tools they need to find things out for themselves, online learning support sites, time management apps and how to keep a clear and calm mind.  Let’s not teach them that laying the blame on someone else is the reason if they fail a test or exam.  If they learn now, then they won’t be on the back foot when they start out on their own in the big wide world.

The bottom line is that teachers should be given back more autonomy and power, and so too do their students, but all in the right places.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.  Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King Jr