3 ms·

If the adults aren't responsible, then who is??

• pseudonamed 3y ago
  They too were children once.
• MrJohz 3y ago
  It comes down a lot to your definition of responsibility. Yes, those teachers were adults who could make their own decisions. But sometimes you can make all the decisions that you see as being the best and most informed at the time you make them, and still produce poor outcomes, simply because you don't have the resources or knowledge or ability to do better. So should we judge the teachers based on how they tried to make decisions in the moment when the author was young, or should we judge them based on the results of their decisions with the knowledge that we have now? I find that quite a hard question to answer definitively, but I do know that I tend to use the former rule for myself and the latter rule for others, which certainly seems quite unfair to me.
  • gizmo 3y ago
    I think you're right that there is definitional question here. I think it's right to state that adults are responsible because children are physiologically incapable of taking responsibility for themselves. I think it's right to observe that harm has been done when harm has in fact been done. The question of "guilt" or "judgement" is more complicated, as you say. Where many people go wrong is that they automatically jump from harm + responsibility towards guilt. That's how you end up with articles like these where the author feels like he has to choose between anger towards his teachers and thanking them because they tried their best. That's a false dichotomy if I have ever seen one. A teacher who traumatizes a child isn't that different from a surgeon who botches a surgery. It doesn't mean the surgeon is a terrible person but neither does it mean you have to be thankful to the surgeon because he tried and because he operated successfully on other people.