Why "Responsibility" is obsolete

Teachers should NOT be teaching "responsibility" in this century.

When teachers talk about "responsibility," they primarily mean four very specific behaviors. They don't mean taking care of your family, or not robbing a bank. Here's the four behaviors teachers mean when they say (and grade) "responsibility:"

1.Showing up.  Showing up is the last thing employers want or need in the 21st century. That's because people who work from home are 25% more productive than people who show up at the office or factory.

2.Show up on time. Nobody should show up 'on time,' by which teachers mean 8-4 or 9-5. People should work during their peak productivity hours.  Why would any employer want someone to work regularly when she or he is the least productive?

3.Turn work in on time. Yes, we want people to turn work in on time. But 'on time' in this century gets measured weekly and on a project basis, not daily. Almost no knowledge worker gets evaluated daily. The other point: there's no problem in the workplace turning work in on time. 

4.'Do the work.'  No, no, no.  No employer wants his or her workers to do more work than necessary. Instead, in this century, doing a project in less time is more valuable than doing it in more time. When teachers say 'he didn't do the work,' they mean the student did not put in enough time, not that the student didn't know the subject matter.  In the workplace of the 21st century, the 'less work' one does to achieve a specified outcome, the more profitable and productive that worker is. 

Teacher should be preparing students for the workplace. But that should be the workplace of the 21st century, NOT the factory of the last century.  Photo: Scene from my seminar for K-12 teachers at the St. Croix Falls (Wisconsin) public school district. The big mural portrays the changes of 100 years ago, when society went from an Agrarian Age to the Industrial Age and schools had to change.

Comments

[Suzanne]

When I first started telecommuting, my father-in-law (who's in his 80s) asked me how does my boss know how many hours I work. Here's how the conversation:

FIL - How does your boss know how many hours you work?

ME - I have projects that need to be done and deadlines and as long as my work is done when it's supposed to be done at a high quality level, it doesn't matter when I work.

FIL - Yeah, but how does your boss know how many hours you work?

ME - I guess he doesn't.

[Chris Wondra]

Interesting points, and I can pretty much support your first two.

3 and 4 are a bit more complex than you make them out.

As a teacher (in St. Croix Falls), typically, when I say that a student didn't do the work, I mean "the student didn't do the work" at all--not, "he didn't spend enough time."

#4. If a student did the work in my class, there would be a journal to hand in (or publish), a project to present, some physical (or virtual) artifact to assess for learning. Without that artifact, I've got no way of knowing what the student knows or can do or is capable of. No way to adjust my instruction based on their learning. No feedback, that I, as a teacher need to measure learning. If it's a project, I don't care about the process. I do care about the outcome. The project. Without it. . . what have I got?

Your point for #3 is also interesting because it addresses the idea of "assessment." I don't assess (or evaluate) my students daily. I assess them in a number of different ways. It's not just one test. It's not just daily work. And it's not one single project at the end of the unit. It's not all written or verbal, literal or metaphorical.

I use all of the above methods to assess student understanding.

The challenge that teachers have when students don't do the work, or they don't turn things in on time, is that now there is nothing to assess (or evaluate).

Chris
P.S. that's me on the left of your picture there.

[William Draves]

Good points Chris. And thanks for being in the picture. My immediate reaction is: are your grades gender neutral? We know boys test equally as well as girls, so your male students are being tested, and found to be learning/knowing as much as your female students.

About doing 'any of the work,' are you saying if you give them a test they don't take it? Am thinking they would. While it might be difficult, I think it is up to us as teachers to find out if the student knows the material, whether or not the student has done any "work." Why flunk Einstein, or Gates, or Jobs, or John Lennon (teachers flunked them all)....any smart person if they know the material. Why send smart people to work at WalMart? Why have your retirement income reduced because smart kids can't go to college and run businesses and employ people and....