Just letting you know up front that this isn’t easy.
Every fiber of your body will scream “No, I can’t do it!”
But it works.
In fact, it can be transformational. It can be the one thing keeping you from becoming the teacher you want to be.
So what is it?
It’s to take responsibility for everything that happens in your classroom. Ownership. Duty. Blame. Onus. The buck stops with me. The whole nine.
Yes, students are responsible for their own behavior, wholly and completely. Yes, you may indeed have the worst principal in the world.
You may be at a grade level you dislike, work with people that get on your nerves, and feel as if administration dumps the most challenging students in your class every year.
You may be the most disadvantaged teacher on Earth.
Take responsibility anyway. For it all. It can be the best teaching decision you’ve ever made. As soon as you do it, as soon as you say, “It’s on me,” things will instantly begin to change.
You’ll feel more empowered. You’ll have a greater sense of control, which is a huge stress reliever.
You’ll stop complaining and being a victim. You’ll instead automatically look for solutions. Your disposition and character will also change.
No longer will you be defeated, shoulders rounded, downcast and beaten. You’ll be invigorated and free to do something about your circumstances. You’ll show your students through your actions how to act when things don’t go their way.
Your attitude alone—Bold, confident, direct, clear thinking—will come through loud and clear.
The change in you will change them.
You’ll also garner deep respect from your colleagues and administrator. Best of all, however, is that all those excuses you used to rely on disappear in the wind. You won’t even acknowledge them anymore.
–Especially as you begin to overcome them, as you recognize that they were holding you back.
Taking responsibility is leadership. Not many people are willing to do it because it’s hard and takes toughness. You have to stand on your own two feet, embrace uncertainty, and risk the fear of excellence.
But it will draw students and people to you like nothing else. It will give you more power and more influence than you ever thought possible.
So what are you waiting for?
Do it now before the start of a new school year. It’s a decision, nothing more. Go on. Walk to the edge. Close your eyes. And take the leap.
I’ll be waiting for you at the bottom.
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Wow! Thank you, Michael. I am bookmarking this one!
I once had a principal who said this to the staff a few years ago. I was offended. Then I came across this website. I became a better teacher.
This is SO helpful! Thank you!
I love this! I am certainly going to improve on it. Thanks
Wow! What an incredible article! Thank you.
Sooo empowering Michael Linsin. Thank you. I found this blog looking for ways to conquer my verbosity and repetition demons in me, but I found the most that was to be learned about leadership. I’m not a classroom teacher, but I’m loving the person that I’m being equipped to be!
Inspirational introduction! I would think students need a good dose of this kind of thinking too. All to often they are given the opposite.
I agree with this. It is not a problem I have. I teach in a very rural school, and I teach 7th & 8th grade. And for the most part, the kids work for me. Not saying I don’t have wrecks, I do, but only occasionally. We are people not saints.
My problem is the kids do not seem to think they need to treat the other staff like they treat me. And that staff comes to me to complain, and to expect me to do something about it, very aggravating.
Mrs Knuppe
I so appreciate the constant encouragement and honesty of this blog! Keep it up!
Very good …..own your classroom and when the students walk in the room they know where the line is. This also applies to working with other teachers and admin. Don’t wait for the green light from others, do it yourself and be responsible if things go wrong.
Bill from Canada.
I was wondering if you could give some more ideas for consequences. My job last year was to cover for teachers on leave for health or personal reasons. My last four weeks at the end of the school year were extremely challenging. The class had already had ten different substitutes when I arrived. Seven students (elementary age) refused to follow the rules at first and when school was over it was down to two. The behavior was mercurial depending on their interactions – one would shout insults which could be followed by physical intimidation, thrown objects like pencils, or running around the room trying to hit each other. I tried everything I could think of (moving seating, taking away privileges, speaking to parents,) but it finally boiled down to having them removed from the room, which made them miss out on the fun projects. This was the first year I have seen so much violence as a solution choice and heard so many wanting to harm themselves or others.
Thank you for the inspirational “conversations” that you send each week. It’s a blessing and keeps me grounded.
I’m not with you on this one because Once I stopped taking responsibility for students’ bad behavior… I had the best entire whole year of my career. Yes I taught them how I wanted them to behave in class but I felt it was on them to pull themselves together and guess what… they did… with a little help from simple consequences I pulled from this website. I’m happy!
I’m with you as well. I have always been very critical of myself and internalize anything turbulent going on in my classroom as a shortcoming that I have in my teaching practice. Recently I’ve been trying to be kinder to myself and adopt a mindset similar to yours and it has helped my self-concept as a teacher.
Equating being seriously affected by things out of our control as “acting like a victim” rubs me the wrong way a bit.
I’ll have to sit on this article a bit more.
I think Michael would agree that it is on the students to pull themselves together. What he is saying is that it is on the teacher to do exactly what you did – set your rules and expectations, and apply the consequences. His point is that we are not to use excuses to get out of doing those things.
Your articles have been very helpful Michael, especially during the post-lockdown chaos, thank you again for all the time you put into helping teachers.
I agree with Joyce on this. When we say, “taking responsibility for everything that happens in your classroom” we seem to be putting a little too much pressure on teachers. Everything affects each other, any conflicting decision by the admin or the parents makes everything more complicated, so I think it’s about the culture of the school, whatever you believe and practice should be compatible with everything else and everyone should do their part including the administrators, parents, teachers and students. If I do my part as a teacher and things do not get any better, then it is probably because others are not taking full responsibility and not putting the effort as much as teachers do. It is teamwork and everyone should own their part.
Perhaps part of taking responsibility for the class includes helping your students to take responsibility for themselves.
AWESOME! I teach like this, but the school I teach in is a wreck. All the teachers come and complain to me that “it’s not my fault, I’ve got this crazy kid” or “cuz it’s Covid” or “this class is a mess only cuz I’ve got these two kids in it” or “none of the kids know the material cuz it’s a bad textbook” or “the kids are bad cuz their parents’ don’t support me” and I laugh cuz they never stop finding excuses… but it’s never THEM. I know some teachers that somehow “get the worst class” for three years in a row already 🙂 And yes, if only they stopped and straightened their shoulders and held themselves like the KING or the QUEEN of their classroom, I think it would be a gamechanger.
What a great article. Thank you Michael. Like someone already commented, your advice is very empowering!