866
Me_irl
(lemmy.nz)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
866 points (99.1% liked)
me_irl
8227 readers
421 users here now
All posts need to have the same title: me_irl it is allowed to use an emoji instead of the underscore _
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
My dude, the assertion here is "there's no need to be condescending to a small child for actions outside of their sphere of control".
That obviously wasn't the part I was responding to. There's more than one point floating around this discussion. No need to take the bad faith approach and assume I'm responding to the blame issue. No need to be rude.
There's no need to shame students. But I'm talking specifically about why schools have policies like this. Often you need to design policies so that blame isn't assigned. Instead of litigating every late homework assignment, you except X number of late homeworks. Or you simply accept none and give opportunities for extra credit.
Teachers often have to design policies so that they don't need to do a bunch of litigation. Instead you have blameless policies and simply have enough buffer that a few negative occurrences that aren't the kid's fault won't affect their grade.
No, you definitely responded to them saying "Which kind of idiot says that to an elementary student? That incredibly dumb." by describing them as "A teacher that actually needs to run a classroom".
I don't know what kind of classroom you're running but I certainly didn't feel any need to blame a child for their parent dropping them off late.
You're too focused on blame and responsibility. When a teacher says, "it's your responsibility," they're saying, "ultimately, in life, you are the one who will have to deal with the outcome. You need to plan for the unexpected." It's not a statement of moral responsibility. It's saying, "one way or another, it's your responsibility to be here."
If a parent is consistently dropping a kid off late, the student needs to reach out to the teacher about that. The teacher can then have a discussion with the parents.
You solve conundrums like this by getting away from the blame mentality. We're talking about K12 students being late for class, not people being indicted for felonies. We don't need to obsess so much over guilt and innocence or whether once absence is the parent's fault or the student's fault.
Do you not see the disconnect between saying others need to move away from the blame mentality while actively defending blaming the kid? Why would the teacher not be able to independently recognise the pattern of lateness and need a literal 7 year old to point it out? What help could a teacher even offer beyond a report to social services?
How, as specifically as possible, is 7 year old meant to ensure their own timeliness when they have almost no legal control over their actions?
I'm not blaming the kid at all. You're confusing blame with responsibility.
Can't answer this as you're too focused on individual blame.
When I say blame, I'm referring to a moral judgment. If I'm blaming someone, I feel they clearly did something wrong and they should feel bad about it.
I'm not blaming a kid. I'm saying they're ultimately responsible. Kids and parents have to take responsibility for their tardies, even if they're not the ones at fault. As an adult, paying your bills is your responsibility. Even if some month you miss your rent payment for circumstances beyond your control, you're still responsible for making rent.
That's why zero-blame systems are a good way to design classroom instruction. You give the kid and parents a certain number of free absences and don't try to assign blame for every single incident.
That's exactly the kind of classroom I'm describing. You give a student a certain number of free tardies. For 90% of kids, they'll stay under the limit and not have a problem. No need to waste time litigating every tardy. But a few will consistently have more than the limit, and that's when you as a teacher can notice the pattern and start investigating.
And also, don't be too focused on the individual here. A 7 year old doesn't really have individual responsibility for anything. The parents are ultimately always responsible for the student arriving on time. Tardies are just recorded on the student's file, because they're the ones enrolled there. When a 7 year old gets poor marks or a disciplinary action, it's always a situation of shared responsibility between parents and children.
Fuck you, the kids ARE individuals and classroom planning that doesn't account for that is guaranteed to fail. When you "assign responsibility" by telling a child to fix it themselves you aren't talking to a hypothetical, you are talking to a real, single individual who needs real help and is being told to just somehow transport themselves. The reason so many children are being failed by school systems worldwide is because of people like you who expect them to fit themselves to your expectations regardless of thier personal circumstances.
There we go, the problem with society: we trap people in unjust traps, leaving them bitter, because someone up the chain could not be arsed.
Imagine the kind of lesson this teaches the poor kid.
Hell, the type of lesson I learned from this, is that there must be a better species than human somewhere in the future, to replace us.
I honestly do not see a problem with this system. Kids need to be in school. Some won't. You have to have some way of forcing them to attend and be there on time.
You can lament and wax poetically about the unjustness of it all, but in the meantime we have kids to teach. And really, this isn't an unjust trap at all. You provide a mechanism to hold people accountable, and you give them enough grace to handle accidental twists of fate beyond their control.
I see nothing wrong with this system. You're dreaming of a utopia where every kid will willingly go to school and arrive perfectly on time, all of their own free will. You're lamenting that we don't live in a fairlyland fantasy world.
Then what were you responding to. The comment you responded to literally only said one thing, about talking to a child. So yeah, that is what you were responding to.
No there wasn’t. You were the one that brought up everything else. The only thing being discussed was talking shit to a child.
Policies like what!?!? Blaming children?
I think you must be a robot.
They asked who would say that to a kid. And I said any teacher that needs to run an actual classroom. Then I explained why so many teachers have policies like this.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with telling a kid, "sorry, I can't dig into every excuse for every tardy and late homework. You get three free tardies and three free late homeworks. It's ultimately your responsibility, and for unpredictable accidents, you're covered."
There's absolutely nothing wrong with instructing students that they are ultimately responsible for their actions. There will be times in life where they simply have to be at a certain place and certain time.