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Thesis Statement
Personal responsibility results to increase in the rate of success and decrease in examination cheating among the students in schools.
Introduction
The word personal responsibility is the self-awareness of a person towards success of one’s life. It is also being aware of the initial goal of one’s life hence doing everything towards one’s own progress, to attain ones initial plan. Different people can define personal responsibility differently but one of the major definitions is that it is an attempt to use your own effort to be successful in everything.
The responsible person is the one who can make decisions and face the consequences of those decisions without complaining. One is responsible in life if he or she can be able to progress in life by abstaining anything, which might not be useful. Making such decisions need a strong person whose focus is purely in God and his ability to work in life without affecting anyone around negatively (Reiss, 2010).
The main aim of personal responsibility is to be able to show forth and even express the inner most beauty in visible ways, by responding to the issues of life and express your genuine love towards yourself and other people. The main aim of one’s personal responsibility is to ensure that the environment can also benefit from the gift of your appearance in that particular place or the society.
Making ones personal responsibility relies mainly on the people who want to ensure total success in everything they are doing. It also takes one’s self to be able to motivate own self to pursue a goal that seems difficult for people or even which people might neglect due to the vices that they are doing.
Importance of Personal Responsibility for a Student
There is correlation between personal responsibility of the student and their success in college. This relationship exists because personal responsibility directly affects issues that are pertinent to one’s life such as family, education, relationships as well as physical and spiritual well-being of an individual. Personal responsibility determines the success of the student in college for a number of reasons (Chester, 2008).
The first reason is self-discipline or self-control. Personal responsibility is the ability to be in control of one’s life in terms of emotions and actions. Students who do not have personal responsibility concerning their lives are prone to influences of doing what others are doing without proper reasons because they simply shift the blame on others when things do not go as they were expected. This lack of self-control comes about because any individual without a sense of personal responsibility will always be irresponsible.
A student without personal responsibility will blame the lecturer for failing in the exam. On the other hand, a student who has personal responsibility will not blame the lecture for the failure rather the student will critically analyze the reasons behind his failure and decide that they have a responsibility to pass. This explains why students who have a sense of personal responsibility have higher scores than those without personal responsibility (Bourbon, 1994).
Students who know that their actions affect others are also sensitive to the needs of others. They know when they have hurt someone and they are quick to apologize. If they wrong a teacher, they are likely to apologize. This endears them to both their fellow students and to their teachers.
This harmonious coexistence with others because of taking personal responsibility creates inner peace and concentration required by the mind for study purposes. Therefore, a student who has personal responsibility is likely to understand concepts better than a student who is at loggerheads with everyone (Chester, 2008).
Peer pressure as a factor that wields huge influence on the college students seems not to have a major effect on students who have a sense of responsibility. Personal responsibility dictates that one’s actions have consequences even when acted in a group setting.
Drug abuse, which often starts in a group setting, is not likely to affect a student who has a personal responsibility over his or her actions. This means that students who are personally responsible for their lives are unlikely to be involved in drug abuse, which negatively affects one academic performance (Chester, 2008).
The other factor that makes the student who takes personal responsibility to succeed in college more than those who do not take personal responsibility is that they do not allow circumstances to hinder their progress in life. They have a high sense of self-esteem or self worth, which makes them to confront issues critically rather than emotionally.
Students who feel that they are not in control pity themselves when they have issues to deal with in their lives thus affecting their physical health negatively. This may lead to absenteeism from classes and even suicidal cases (Chester, 2008).
Students who are aware of the word personal responsibility also manage to delay gratification. Delay of gratification is simply the ability to deny oneself pleasure in pursuit of a particular goal.
Personal responsibility enables the student to stick out or to persevere in pursuit of academic excellence thereby delaying the enjoyment of pleasures, which may affect the concentration, or peace of mind in pursuit of excellence.
They delay gratification of pleasures such as drug use, sexual relationships, and hooliganism known to affect student’s academic performance (Bourbon, 1994).
Personal Responsibility Strategies for Success
As a student, one should ensure that all the work given does not go to waste by ensuring that all people around do not copy the assignments but rather do their own work as commanded by the lecturers or professors. Copying of other student’s work robs the student competency and the necessary self-confidence required at work as well as circumstances outside college.
This will be a great stride in personal responsibility by personally handling one assignment, as it will give the student a chance to have mastery of the topic in an honest manner.
One should also ensure that the area surrounding the school is always clean and ready for use by anyone who wants to learn and all students can breathe the right air as required by the education policies. Commitment to the environment is imperative in promoting personal responsibility not only over oneself but also on the environment at large (Bourbon, 1994).
Personal timetable that will assist to manage time during study hours and to reduce time wastage during other activities is very important. One should also ensure timely completion of the school projects to avoid being at loggerheads with the lecturers.
This is because the recognition that time is a resource, it is precious, and it is out of order to waste it is the beginning of personal development (Bourbon, 1994).
There is a need to ensure that the people around are able to learn about self-responsibility and its advantages by setting a good example to them. This is because personal responsibility involves having responsibility on not only ones actions but also reviewing ones plans and goals all the time for better performance.
Goal setting enables one to review their personal progress. Goals also provide a sense of purpose to a student as they focus on ones actions and activities towards one major goal. One should break down those goals into daily goals, monthly goals and yearly goals.
Conclusion
Personal responsibility is an important aspect of human life. It is even more important when the student learns personal responsibility early in life. The apathy, accidents, and laziness, which lead to lower standards of living, are preventable if the students learn early in life to exercise responsibility over their own lives.
The world would certainly be a better place if the blame games stopped and people took responsibility over their actions. This change can start from the school especially if teachers take as their responsibility to instill a culture of taking responsibility among students.
Performance of college students therefore directly relates to the student’s ability to take personal responsibility over their lives. Although there is no direct correlation between college grades and success in life, there is direct correlation between the ability to take responsibility in life and to succeed elsewhere.
One of the best environments to nurture personal responsibility in one’s life is in college and students in college should take it upon themselves to ensure that they not only score better grades in life but they have also mastered the art of self responsibility which will propel them to higher heights of life.
References
Bourbon, T. (1994). Discipline at home and at school. New York: Brandt.
This book is about Perceptual control theory PCT on how perceptions determine actions. This theory looks into what happens in the classroom and how teachers try to bring in discipline to the students based on their perceptions.
The student on the other hand has his or her perceptions about what discipline is. This book looks into human behavioral system on how perceptions affect habit and performance of students in the classroom. Thomas Walter Bourbon is a retired professor of psychology who focused his study on physiology and human perceptions.
He has worked with medical research institutions to develop the perceptual control theory into an alternative science. He is now a consultant with various schools and colleges on how they may apply the perception control theory to deal with behavioral problems in school, homes, and in clinical settings.
Chester, C. (2008). Building classroom discipline. Boston: Pearson Education.
This book is indeed helpful to teachers who wish to understand how to model discipline in their classrooms. It looks into the various ways and models of doing this in a way that involves the student.
It shows the impact of discipline on students and how to motivate students in self-responsibility. It also delves into the new ways and trends in the application of classroom discipline. This book is helpful to beginner teachers and teachers in colleges in handling adult students.
Charles Chester the author of the book is a professor in San Diego University and he has many awards accorded to him due to his contribution in the field of classroom discipline. Due to his wealth of experience in classroom, teaching his work is worth of study.
Reiss, S. (2010). What happened to personal responsibility? Chicago, Journal of Psychology (8).
This journal article is a critique on the education system as well as the society as a whole for their failure to instill personal responsibility in the life of students.
Institutions are the ones blamed for individual failures. The author gives an example where if a student fails in the exam or caught cheating in national exams, it is not the student who is to blame but the education system. This kind of attitude irks the author as he questions the kind of society, which we are building without taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions.
Steven Reiss is a contributor and a commentator on social issues in the Journal of Psychology today. He teaches psychology in Ohio State University. His research on human motivation makes his work on issues of discipline and personal responsibility authentic.