Lessons learned over time: Teaching Responsibility

My friends and I were talking about responsibility and how we did our best to instil this into the young minds that we had the opportunity to serve when we were teaching.

One of my friends related the story of when he was teaching in a small interior town and coaching basketball. 

My team was playing in the semi-finals for the season on a cold wintry, early Saturday morning game. If my team won the game,  we would be in the regional playoffs for the BC Championships. So on the Friday night after the game, I held a meeting and talked about responsibility and making sure that everyone should get enough sleep and show up full of energy in the morning. 

Everyone on the team was pumped and they were all there in the morning except for my star defenseman. The young man lived about 30 miles outside of town and had no phone. The first half was a very tight game, and we were down by a couple of baskets at the end of the first half.  My star defensive player showed up just before the half. I was very upset, so at the break, I  took the player aside and gave him holy hell for letting the team down and not showing up in time. I told him to get dressed and I allowed him to play the second half of the game.We won the game by two points.

After the game, the defenseman came and apologised to me, and by then I had calmed down. So I asked the boy what had happened. The young man replied,  "Everyone at home had gotten drunk so there was no one available to drive me to the game, so rather than let the team down, I ran into town, I am sorry I could not make it in time for the first half." I noticed, only then, that the boy was only wearing a light jacket, which I had not noticed when the boy had first shown up.

We asked what did you learn as a new teacher,  and my friend said, "I could not teach this young man responsibility as he had it in spades. I learned that before passing a judgment I should ask questions and listen to explanations." 

A good lesson for all of us to learn, at any stage or better yet early in life or in our chosen career.