Rebuilding Rob

Welcome to the second post in my new series “words words, words”. As many as you may know, I am an English teacher. As such, I have a real fascination with language, word choice, and word meaning.

WARNING: This is going to get wordy and even dorkier than my usual posts. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

There are quite a few words that are used incorrectly in our everyday speak. Sometimes, this is because people don’t know any better. Other times, it’s because a words connotation (our perceived meaning of the word) ends up superseding the word’s denotation (its literal, dictionary definition). Responsibility is one of those words that is often misused, to the point that often the true meanings of responsibility. and accountability are hard to separate .

I found this great article on indeed, that really talks about the differences between the accountability versus responsibility.

Accountability

Accountability, the Indeed article says, is being “able to take ownership of your actions and justify the results.” We talk a lot about accountability in my line of work, teaching. Teachers are to take accountability for the academic growth that takes place in their classroom over the course of a school year.

That is to say that, as an English teacher, there are certain literary elements, literary techniques, writing, styles, vocabulary, and grammar skills, in addition to reading comprehension and fluency, that I am expected to help students master over the course of a school year. If students fall short of those goals, the first thing I need to do is look at myself. What did I not spend enough time teaching? What skills do I need to approach when teaching them differently the next time? Can my actions, or lack of, speak to my students results at the end of the school year?

Now I could probably write a book on the inadequacies of our current educational system and how politicians don’t want to place any of the blame for our school shortcomings on anyone other than teachers themselves. But I won’t go down that road today.

There is a myriad of reasons why students don’t “get something” during a school year. And education really is a fluid thing. But I think that’s the reason why I enjoy teaching at the secondary level so much. Classes are roughly 1 hour long. If I feel like a particular lesson doesn’t go well with one hour of the day, I can always adapt, and try something different for the next class.

At any rate , teachers, for better for worse, have to take accountability for the success or failures of their students over the course of an academic school year

Responsibility

The same, indeed article also says “being responsible is about being in charge of specific events, tasks, or roles.”

Of the two, responsibility is the word people really misunderstand. A lot of times people say things like “it’s your responsibility“ wonder what they mean is “you need to take accountability for this“. Just look at the word “responsibility”. The word I see within that word is “response”

Mark Manson talks a lot about responsibility in his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And I swear, it’s not that I think this is the greatest self-help book of the 21st-century. It may very well be; but it’s really more that I don’t read other self-help books in general.

One of the things I’ve learnt throughout my adult life, particularly after my divorce is this: there are two things in life, and only two things that we have any control over: the things we do/say and how we react to the things we do/say

When someone spills a glass of milk. There are any number of factors that go into that occurring. A glass could be wet. The person‘s hand could be sweaty. They may not have a strong enough grip on the glass. It might be heavier than they realize, once filled with liquid.

Little Johnny may not have any control over all of those additional factors leading up to him spilling the milk. But what is his responsibility is how he is going to respond to that spilled milk. Will he leave a mess and walk away? Or will he take steps to clean it up? Again that is the only thing that Johnny has any control over is how he is going to react to it happening. That, and not the act of the milk spilling, is his responsibility.

That is where people really mess up the meaning of responsibility. Responsibility is not a burden. It is a response to the situation at hand.

And on a lighter note…

Has anyone stumbled across the Will Smith “fault versus responsibility“ video? I think, in essence, he talks about pretty much the same ideas I described in this post. I’m not going to provide a link to the video, because I absolutely cannot stand Will Smith. I haven’t cared much for him since he did The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

But does anyone else find it criminally ironic that Will Smith is on the Internet, talking to people about fault and responsibility, given his dysfunctional marriage and the whole slapgate fiasco (which I wrote about HERE) at the 2022 Academy Awards? Or is it just me?

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts…

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The article “Accountability versus Responsibility” originally appeared on Rebuilding Rob.