Whose Responsibility Is It, Anyway?

I couldn’t make it to class last time. Did we do anything?

It’s one of my all-time favorite student questions.

Truly!

When I was younger and more idealistic, it would infuriate me. Or provoke sarcasm. I stood up here lecturing for an hour and twenty minutes, but no, we didn’t do anything.

Now I truly embrace it and chuckle to myself as I give lecture highlights and suggest the student get notes from a classmate.

Why did I used to get so upset?

Honestly, because I took responsibility for something that wasn’t mine.

I would be hurt and angered because the student was clearly not taking his education seriously. The education I was working hard to give him. The education that, as a taxpayer, I was subsidizing.

But over many years of teaching, it’s finally sunk in. That’s not my responsibility. To make sure students show up to class. To ensure they earn As and go on to do bigger and better things.

Nope. My responsibility is to show up and teach.

Sure, I take my job more seriously than that. I field email questions and spend time going over notes with students who ask for help. I meticulously plan my lectures and beat myself up {too much sometimes} when they don’t go as hoped.

But it’s not my job – not my responsibility – to make people show up for class. So I have no right to be bothered when they don’t.

Yes. I am responsible for showing up and doing my part. But my students are responsible for showing up and doing theirs.

Period.

It’s unfortunate when others don’t take their part seriously. But that’s their choice. And as long as they don’t try to make it my responsibility – and most of them don’t – by begging and cajoling and whining about homework extension deadlines, it no longer bothers me.

It’s difficult some days, determining what is my responsibility and what isn’t.

My nervous system is particularly sensitive to other people’s people’s energy, so I often develop a “contact crazy.” I can get overly worked up about a co-worker’s latest concern or one of our children’s current “emergencies.”

But in this one area of student absences, I am easily able to divorce myself from the situation, no matter how hard they thrash and flail, because I’m not the one whose job it was to make sure they got on the bus this morning.

I can tend the garden of my life so much easier when I take responsibility for only those things for which I am truly responsible. And allow others to take responsibility for their own stuff. Can I hear an Amen?

But seriously, if you’re going to miss class, the proper question is, What did we do? Not, Did we do anything?

2 Comments

  1. Melinda Lancaster

    “I can tend the garden of my life so much easier when I take responsibility for only those things for which I am truly responsible.” You said a mouthful here.

    • Kendra Burrows

      It’s so hard to do, but I’m getting better with practice and God’s grace.

Hi, I’m Kendra

I help bright, successful over-thinkers change their negative thoughts using Scripture and the science of how God made you.

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