Introduction

The most common affective goal areas selected by NCA schools are "respect" and "responsibility." Few would challenge that these are worthy goals for young people of any age. However, there appears to be substantial diversity of opinion among school people as to what is meant by these two terms, and there are some widespread misconceptions about their meanings, as well. This article attempts to address this problem and offer clarifications.

Respect

As a consultant working with many schools that selected "respect" as a goal in their school improvement plans, it became clear to me that they were, more often than not, seeking a different, closely related concept but not respect. That is, practitioners often wanted students to be "respectful" to others. Societal norms ask us to be respectful even to strangers. Have you ever known a person to whom you are respectful but don't necessarily respect as an individual? A person can be respectful, even to a stranger. Respect, on the other hand, is high regard, and a person must know or be familiar with an individual in order to have respect for that person. To understand the difference between the concepts of "having respect" and "being respectful," think of someone you respect and say the first name to yourself. Why do you respect that person? What trait, condition, or accomplishment of or by that person do you respect?

We respect others for three major reasons: (1) the person has achieved or accomplished something that we value or that impresses us; (2) the person has made significant, positive contributions to the lives of others; and/or (3) the person has character traits that we value, such as loyalty, honesty, generosity. It is important to note we may respect a person for just one of the three reasons, but a negative instance in any category can nullify the respect we might have in other areas. For example, a person might respect Michael Jordan for the skills he exhibited and the manner in which he played basketball. However, not enough may be known about Mr. Jordan to make a decision about respect in other areas of his life. Nevertheless, that person might well express respect for Michael Jordan. Similarly, a person might respect Albert Schweitzer or Jonas Salk for the positive contributions each made to the lives of other people. A person might respect Abraham Lincoln because of the belief that he was honest. Regardless of how we combine what we know about others to determine whether we respect them, we seem to draw on these three general reasons. If "respect" is the object of a school improvement goal, it will be important to teach students about these three general premises and have them apply them in clarifying whom they respect

Being Respectful

On the other hand, my experience with practitioners is that they are really interested in the related concept of "being respectful." A person is respectful of another when the person is considerate of the rights, needs, health, safety, feelings, values, morals, beliefs, opinions, gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, age, or dignity of the other person. As school practitioners, we become concerned when students disregard one or more of the above when interacting with others. Many infractions of school rules involve a student's lack of regard for these mentioned considerations. When a student uses vulgar language in school, she/he violates the values of those who do not want to hear that kind of language. A student being sarcastic to a teacher violates the dignity of that teacher. Therefore, when teaching students to "be respectful," it is important that students understand wherein disrespect lies. Students may need to learn at school that other people have different values, beliefs, or morals than they and that different is not necessarily better or worse, just different. Students might need to learn that people interpret behaviors differently from one country or society to another or from one context to another. In short, when "being respectful" becomes the object of a school improvement goal, practitioners need to think about what to teach students and how to teach them. It is common but ill advised for practitioners to think of what they do not want students to do and to create punishments or negative consequences as the interventions. We must not assume that students understand what it means to be respectful, in general, and certainly students need opportunities to learn about what it means to be respectful in specific situations.

Responsibility 

In working with many schools that have selected "responsibility" as the basis for a school improvement goal, I have found that what the faculty typically wanted was "compliance." When teachers spoke of "responsible" behavior, it meant that the student was doing what the teachers wanted the student to do. When teachers spoke of "irresponsible" behavior, it generally meant that either students were doing something the staff did not want or that students were not doing something the staff wanted them to do. In short, the term "responsibility" seemed to be chosen because it is a more positive term than compliance. To help these schools, it was necessary to determine the essence of the goal, that is, to identify what a person does when she/he is acting or choosing responsibly. Since adults cannot follow young people around every minute, it is very desirable that students know what responsibility is and what it looks like in a variety of situations or contexts.

When a person is choosing or behaving responsibly, she/he does three things: (1) identifies the consequences (positive or negative) that accompany each choice or action, (2) accepts the consequences as part of making the choice or taking the action, and (3) considers the impact the choice or action will have on others. Further, the "responsibility" to do something often means that the person has an "obligation" to make a certain choice or to take a certain action. Sometimes obligations are placed upon us without our formal agreement, sometimes we enter into a contract and accept one or more obligations as part of the contract, and sometimes we place obligations upon ourselves. For example, schools make rules that place obligations for specific behaviors, such as wearing clothing that does not display gang insignia. Companies have policies about the responsibilities or obligations a customer has in returning an item . In addition, an individual may choose personal obligation, such as choosing to reduce fossil fuel emissions by walking to work.

No one acts or chooses responsibly in every instance, but schools may work toward a goal based on students knowing what responsible behavior would look like in a variety of settings. Schools fall short in teaching students about responsibility when they focus solely on placing obligations on students (making rules) and then punishing students (or providing negative consequences) when students do not comply. A far richer form of addressing "responsibility" as the basis for a school improvement goal is to teach students the three things responsible people do and to teach the ways people acquire responsibilities. Further, schools need to provide students with opportunities to describe what a responsible person would do in a variety of situations. When teaching students about responsibility, schools need to focus on helping students learn what responsibility is and how to apply that knowledge in a variety of settings rather than trying to change student behaviors through rules and negative coercion. It is natural for practitioners to focus on behavior that has the added benefit of improving the work life of the staff, but in many cases students are not learning what responsible behavior would look like from parents, from the media, or the larger society. The school needs to teach responsible behavior if it plans to hold students accountable for demonstrating "responsibility" in behaviors and choices.

Concluding Comments

Teaching young people the meaning of "respect," or how to function "respectfully," is a worthy goal. Of at least equal worth is the goal of functioning "responsibly." If school people articulate clear distinctions between "respect" and "respectful behavior" and between "responsible behavior" and simple compliance and if they then nurture the appropriate understandings and behaviors, these goals can be among the most powerful in an improvement plan, based on the ultimate value both for the individual student and for the society of which the student is and will be a part.