Do you ever get the feeling that teachers are being saddled with more responsibility for student learning than students are? I do. This statement may sound whiny, yet I strongly feel it is true. I know as a teacher I'm supposed to hold myself accountable for my students' successes and failures, and I do...to a certain extent. Yet I cannot help but feel that students are no longer being held accountable for their own performance.
Last week my boyfriend shared a post with me from a blog he follows (to view the post click here). The writer of this blog has taught Latin from middle school up to the college level and often shares his views on education. This particular blog post presented an interesting view on this topic, and came at the perfect time. I had been frustrated for several weeks by the lack of interest and concern some (by no means all) of my students have exhibited in the classroom. While I understand and agree that as educators we must be held accountable for what is taught and how it is presented, I feel we are doing these students a great disservice by not holding them accountable as well. Educators can only do so much, the rest is up to the student.
To wrap up this post, I'll leave you with a quote from Ernest Dimnet, "Children have to be educated, but they also have to be left to educate themselves."
