Consequence for inaction

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Consequence for inaction				November 24, 2010

The Gazette reported: “Athletic Director Dan Barner announced Tuesday afternoon that a player he did not identify had failed months ago to turn in a completed physical exam form mandated by the Virginia High School League. A coach of a winter team discovered it missing in recent days. The oversight cost Lafayette two of its seven wins and eliminated the team from its first playoff since 2007.”

The spin: “Lafayette High football players have more free time on their hands this week than they wanted or earned, for one reason: Adults screwed up. Which adults screwed up is irrelevant, because the list is so long.” Thus wrote Dave Fairbanks in last Thursday’s Daily Press.

You’ll pardon my reaction to all this, but, as far as I’m concerned, Fairbanks is hawking hooey. The point is that a player failed to turn in the required form.

The player was young, but does that mean he’s totally devoid of any responsibility? At what age should we expect students to begin to realize that their actions, or inaction, have consequences that may affect both themselves and others who depend on them? At what point should older adults inform those who are younger that they are now responsible for their own messes?

Consider matters elsewhere.

It used to be that those who had reached high school age were considered young adults, but no more. For some reason we have so mollycoddled those in their mid and late teens that we have instilled in them the misguided notion that they are totally immune when it comes to questions of responsibility or meeting academic targets.

For them, failure is no longer a possibility. Whatever their misdeeds, the blame lies with parents, teachers, coaches or anyone else who should have predicted and prevented all those missteps revelatory of a laissez-faire attitude toward the relationship between actions and consequences. Adults screwed up.

Unfortunately, this same pusillanimity relative to students as innocuously innocent sacred cows has now wormed its way into the public school systems.

As a result of unacceptable dropout rates, schools are going to hitherto unfathomed lengths to assure students that they can’t fail at anything.

Administrators are warning teachers that they should no longer rely on zeros or F’s to indicate laxity, unacceptable performance on tests or failure to submit work on time. If a student fails a test, give him make-up tests until he passes. If he fails to submit work on time, give him more time.

Some schools systems have gone so far as to eliminate the grade of “F” completely and replace it with an “I” for incomplete.

As if that weren’t enough, the principal of West Potomac High School in Fairfax County decreed that teachers must allow even cheaters to retake tests. As reported in The Washington Post, principal Cliff Hardison warned teachers that cheating should “result in a disciplinary consequence separate from an academic consequence.”

Really?

I may be going out on a limb here, but it seems to me that a breach of academic ethics, whether it be cheating, plagiarism or theft of a test, should have academic consequences. Fortunately, the teachers and parents at West Potomac High agreed. They raised such a ruckus that Hardison was forced to pedal backwards on that nonsensical suggestion.

Yet the fact remains that we are headed down a road that leads our students to conclude that there is no such thing as failure. That if they procrastinate or do something they know is wrong there will be no consequences. That if they screw up, as Dave Fairbanks has it, it’s the fault of some brain-addled elder.

What we should take away from the mishap at Lafayette High is that in the real world failure exists and actions have consequences for both young and older adults. We do a grave disservice to our students to suggest otherwise.