Compassion and Accountability Can Coexist
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that being compassionate toward struggling students and holding them accountable are not contradictory — they're both essential.
Key Takeaways
- Both are needed - Students who are having a hard time deserve both empathy and clear expectations
- Compassion without accountability enables failure - Excusing a student from all responsibility because they're struggling doesn't help them get better
- Accountability is a form of compassion - Holding students to standards communicates belief in their ability to succeed
Transcript
Watch out for people who make excuses for kids in the name of being compassionate towards students.
And this seems to be a new phenomenon to me, but this realization that some students face big obstacles in life has made some people turn those immediately into excuses.
And I think that's a choice, right?
I think that's optional.
I think we don't have to make excuses for kids just because we realize that they're facing obstacles.
And those obstacles can be very real.
They can be related to behavior.
They can be related to academics.
They can be related to poverty and life situations, just any kind of having a hard life.
The difference to me is that when we're making excuses, we're no longer having expectations for the child.
We no longer have high expectations and ask them, and expect them to actually do what they're here to do and i find this very alarming especially from psychologists when the goal is not simply to solve the problem to help the child overcome the barrier and get on with the learning that they're here to do and get on with you know with being successful in life but the goal is instead to get everyone else to stop expecting things Again, I understand if somebody is really going through a temporary situation where we just have to back off on growth and let them get stable.
I think there are situations where that makes sense.
But if our goal is to educate, I think for almost all students, almost all the time, taking away that push to learn, to behave, to be successful as a person and be successful as a student, I think is really counterproductive because it tells the student, we're telling the student as an adult, that it is okay for you as a kid to not try, to not do anything, to not put forth your best effort.
And I think that the role of effort is really critical.
And the role of developing self-discipline through effort and through expectations and through rules and consequences, like all of those things that we have traditionally done in education, we're setting aside in the name of compassion for the student.
So let me know what you think about this.
I really feel like we can have compassion We can help students without taking away that high expectation and without providing excuses.
But I'm curious what you're seeing in your setting.
Let me know.