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.