Comments on: Teaching accountability

By: Leadership failure at the start

Leadership failure at the start — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:07:17 +0000

[...] The effort eliminate accountability and further increasing that sense of entitlement to further trash future leaders’ ethical base is in full swing. (Texas seems to be taking a leading role in both. Read this, this and this.) [...]

By: Miki Saxon

Miki Saxon — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:16:15 +0000

But, Jean, they’re special. Just ask mom and dad, who have been telling them that their whole life, who gave any teacher who had the temerity to give them a bad grade what for (or got them fired) and generally protected their little darlings from anything resembling responsibility.

How can you be so cruel as to stomp on their rose colored glasses by forcing them to deal with reality.

Shame on you and keep up the good work!

By: Jean Murray

Jean Murray — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:30:03 +0000

I agree with CandidProf. I am an administrator at an institution of “higher education” (the “higher” part is dubious) and we get many students who figure the rules don’t apply to them (sounds like a lot of investment bankers, doesn’t it?). My favorite excuse is “I tried hard; I studied; how could you give me a failing grade?” As if a grade were somehow a GIFT and you got it if you just showed up and TRIED. They got that attitude in high school.

By: Miki Saxon

Miki Saxon — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:50:58 +0000

Not in Dallas, Wes. In Dallas teachers who challenge are fired.

By: Wes Ball

Wes Ball — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:22:19 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly that boundaries are essential in both the teaching and the business environments. There has to be a challenge to reach beyond what is comfortable or easy to attain something better. I also agree that boundaries have all but disappeared in many schools in an effort to help students “succeed” with the result that there is even more failure.

In my article on Tuesday, I was talking less about Dallas than I was about the corporate environment, just using your article as a jumping off place.

I have to say, however, that I went to high school in Dallas. I went to 15 other schools in other parts of the country before graduating from college and my time in Dallas was the worst education I received anywhere. Because it was high school, I came in contact with more teachers in those three years (they had 3-year HS there – 10th-12th grade) than I had in all the previous years combined, but none of those in Dallas offered any nurturing, inspiration, or challenge. I was so bored and things were so easy that I gave up even trying — something that cost me dearly my first year at The University of Texas in Austin. In fact, one of the things I learned to “fit in” there was how to speak with poor grammar and to not be the star of the class, as I typically had been as I grew up.

It took my failing out my freshman year in college to get me jump-started again. I ended up graduating with a 3.4 grade-point through my own motivation.

If I could wish for anything for these Dallas students, it would be a teacher who obviously cares for the students but who challenges them to do better than they have ever done before in a way that makes them not want to let him down. That’s what real leaders (and teachers) do.