Accountability without blame

 Blaming and shaming are often used to hold people accountable for their actions. But while these tools may be effective in the moment, they do more harm than good in the long run.  The problem is that many people see the short-term impact, and that encourages them to continue shaming people. Blaming and shaming individuals for their mistakes creates a culture of fear, where people become more focused on avoiding blame than on learning from their mistakes. 

When people are afraid of being blamed for their mistakes, they are less likely to admit to them. Instead, they may try to cover up their errors or shift the blame to someone else. This not only perpetuates the problem but also creates a culture of mistrust where individuals are less likely to work together and collaborate effectively. This also tends to stifle risk-taking. 

I wonder if, as an educational system, we promote learning from our mistakes—or do students fear making mistakes?  This fear can feed anxiety in students.  As educators, we need to truly focus on the learning part of our students’ errors. 

In conclusion, the stick may seem like an effective tool to hold people accountable for their actions. However, they do more harm than good. When people fear making mistakes, it hinders their growth.  Instead, schools need to build a culture of accountability, where students and teachers feel safe admitting mistakes and learning from them without fear of retribution.  This will lead to a more productive environment. 

How to redo your goals

 

As a teacher, I often hear students say that they do not like to learn, that this class is too difficult. But I have watched my own children play video games, and I see them learn and struggle without complaint.  One of the things that video games seem to do is hook kids with new chances to apply what they learned.  They might have been killed in the game, but they can start over and apply the new knowledge.

I was therefore fascinated when I read about research done by a University of Pennsylvania professor on emergency reserves.  Emergency reserves are a way to give yourself a redo on a goal and start fresh again.

You may have heard that setting difficult goals helps you accomplish more than if you set easy ones.  A struggling student may set a goal to study economics 20 minutes a week, which is probably easy to do.  The problem is that even if they hit that goal, it might not be enough to truly learn the material.  A more difficult goal would be to study 20 minutes a night.

What sometimes happens in trying to reach difficult goals is that things get in the way.  You might have sports practice or might not feel well one night.  When this happens you might think that a goal is impossible, so you stop studying altogether.

That’s when you want to use your emergency reserve.  If you give yourself one emergency reserve a week, then when something inevitably comes up, you can use your emergency reserve and continue to hit your goal.  The researchers found that not only did people perform better when they had emergency reserves, but they often did not even use them.

When setting difficult goals in the future, make sure to give yourself an emergency reserve.  It will allow you to be more productive. After all, we can all use a free redo once in a while