Learning

Who's responsible for learning?

This is a question and the obvious answer is one that our students are all too familiar with.  The teachers are responsible for teaching, while the students are responsible for learning.  It is easy to refuse responsibility by giving excuses.

Talking about excuses, Mr Yong shared an incident that happened a long time ago in a MNC where he worked. A project was managed badly and the director questioned senior manager, who is known for his laziness, (yes a lazy senior manager, and you wonder how he gets promoted) as follows : -

Director : "Do you blame yourself for what had happened?"

Senior Manager : "I blame myself for listening to you."

What do you think would be the director's reaction?  Face palm?!

So is the manager to be faulted? How about the director? Maybe the director should

a. treat him like a child and "hand-hold" him /

b. breathe down his neck every step of the project /

c. assign a capable person to lead the project instead of him in the first place,

d. ...

so as to ensure smooth execution of the project.

Anyway, the point is "No one ever excused his way to success."  Success takes effort.  A lot of effort.  Playing the blame game never works as the power to change shift to no one.

A child's learning successes is testament to the commitment and effort of a group of people, being parents, teachers, even friends and relatives, and most importantly, the child himself.  It will be futile effort investing time and money onto a child who refuses to be responsible for his/her own learning actions.