Pupil responsibility: Are we failing our students?

For a long time now, teachers have been asked to take responsibility for their work. We provide data on who is not achieving, we put in place interventions to improve results of those missing the mark, we agonize over how to help a class get that thing they just don't get, and at the end of the day, if we fail, if we cannot convince those around us that we took some responsibility and did things to improve, we don't pass our Performance Management, we don't go up a scale with our pay, we don't necessarily have a job anymore. But here's the thing: sometimes it's not our fault.

My master's degree is coming to an end, I am doing it part time whilst working and for my dissertation I am researching the benefits of growth mindset for students with Special Educational Needs. Growth mindset, for those who don't know, is a term coined by Carole Dweck (Google her) which describes a person who ultimately believes that they can improve their performance in activities and thus there intelligence by practicing; by perservering when things get tough. These are the people for whom First Attempt In Learning was made. Growth mindset is a can do attitude, it epitomises the child who struggles but just keeps trying, the solid workers, the ones who may not be in all the too sets but who keep working solidly, day in, day out, until they get the grade they aimed for. It is the very opposite of natural talent, of the cocky child who thinks they can do it all and has a tantrum when they fail.
Now, havings students with a growth mindset in the classroom is amazing, they work hard, they improve, and ultimately they make us look good. But have you ever considered how ridiculous it is that we get by on their laurels? Quite often these students are the ones who save our performance management. And yes, we probably have encouraged them. Yes, we have spent time marking their work after each consecutive rewrite until they've got it. But we haven't done the learning, they have.
And this is where the system falls down. In the same way as we cannot take credit for their success, we cannot take the blame for those that won't. Students who are of a fixed mindset don't believe that trying again will change anything, they believe that their input will always lead to the same output: failure. And I think we've taught them this.

The crux of the matter is we let students off. We let them drop subjects when they get hard, we let them move away from friends they've fallen out with, we accept excuses on homework (I'm sure this is all of us at times). But this doesn't help them. Students today are not forced to take any personal responsibility. There was a situation at my work today where a student had missed a piece of important information, they missed this information because they do not attend class. Yet rather than instruct them that this is the result of their actions and teach them ways to act with resilience and responsibility, we as a school are letting them off, to a monetary cost to ourselves.

I'm sorry but I don't think this is right. As an adult, I have to take responsibility for my actions, I have to learn, I have to try again, I have to have a growth mindset or I don't get anywhere. By teaching this young person that there are no consequences for their lack of responsibility we are teaching them that they don't need to try again, that they don't need to improve. Ultimately, as adults, we will have failed them.
I know tough parenting is out of fashion at the moment, that rules and limitations don't fit with out postmodern way of life. But I can't help thinking that if we don't teach students some responsibility for their actions soon, we are going to be failing their soon to be adult lives.