Why Your Best Students Need Strict Accountability

Many, many teachers are in the habit of looking the other way when the top 10% of their class break a rule. It’s understandable, and certainly easy to justify.

After all, the misbehavior is nearly always an accident, like quietly asking a question but forgetting to raise their hand. It’s such a little thing, harmless and hardly noticeable to the rest of the class.

Besides, enforcing a consequence may upset them. It’s something they’re not used to and could cause them to go home and complain to their (very involved) parents.

But the truth is, despite these concerns, failing to hold your best and most well-behaved students accountable is a huge mistake.

It can even be the reason why you’re struggling with your most challenging students.

Here’s why:

It creates resentment.

Enforcing a consequence based on who the student is—or on the situation, the severity of the misbehavior, or how you happen to be feeling that day—always leads resentment.

It’s a simple algorithm.

As soon as the class notices that you treat some students differently than everyone else, it will obliterate their trust in you. It will rub raw their sense of fairness. The students most deeply affected are those most often on the other end of your consequences.

While many will be privately hurt and disappointed, the most difficult will be plotting their revenge.

It creates entitlement. 

Every time you let your favorites off with a reminder, or ignore their transgression altogether, there is an imperceptible but inevitable shift in attitude toward entitlement.

This is very bad for them.

It tells them that they’re somehow better than their peers, which in the long run is far worse for them than for the “ordinary” students who are quietly building up a healthy resilience to disappointment.

Believing they’re above the law hardens their heart, numbs their sense of empathy, and sets them up for a big, depressive fall that often doesn’t come until years later.

It creates a caste system.

The haves and the have-nots. Royalty and the rest of us. In time, being treated as special by teachers—rather than being challenged and humbled and shown they have so much more to learn—slots kids into a caste system.

Looks, money, clothes, popularity, and athleticism all have their own way of separating kids into cliques and groups, more and more so as they get older.

It’s always been this way to a degree, but social media has made it much worse.

Sadly, many teachers feed the beast by fawning and praising and playing favorites with the cute kids, the fun kids, and the highly successful.

Tall & Steady

Being viewed as special eventually becomes an albatross that can lead to the fear of trying and failing. It can even be a catalyst for anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues down the line.

You’re in a unique position to combat it, to make a difference in shaping a healthy view of self and others and the future that awaits them.

The most impactful teachers remind students through their consistency, fairness, worthy praise only, high standards, and challenging expectations that none of us is so wonderful.

We all have many areas to work on. We all have to work our tails off to reach our goals. We all need others to lean on.

It’s our job, if we’re to do it well, to instill humility, kindness, and true self-worth. To prepare students to stand tall and steady in the face of adversity that will surely come their way.

In this important way, we reach everyone. The life lessons we pay forward make a difference. They carry on inside the heart of every student and rumble into the future.

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19 thoughts on “Why Your Best Students Need Strict Accountability”

  1. I have a question on rewards.
    Is rewarding good students by saying keep it up or giving them certificates of recognition during an assembly will have an undesirable consequences because the students may stop working harder
    Are there any studies that back up this thesis ?
    Thank you

    Reply
  2. and how do you address special needs students who’s needs are not obvious… you can’t discuss this with class necessarily in all cases… your thoughts?

    Reply
    • I’ve had this same question. I have a student who I would think others would realize has limited controls over his emotions. Yet, when I let him slide (otherwise, he’ll often be out of class) other students (one in particular) will make a resentful comment. I usually comment, lets all be concerned with our own behavior, but is that right response?

      Reply
      • the key is in your comment, “…would think others would realise …” I’d be havin a conversation with the class whilst student is absent…”So you guys have noticed that X has trouble with..this is because…and so this is how we can help…

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        • Wow! With all due respect, you absolutely, positively, unequivocally canNOT say that. It is a violation of privacy, the student’s rights, and is probably a lawsuit waiting to happen. You must be very careful about any sense of impropriety. What *may* fly is saying how we all have different needs, and we all are here to support one another, but even still, I’d steer clear.

          Reply
      • I also have this issue. I have so many students (maybe 3-5 in every class) who are either not yet in their least restrictive environment or have high social emotional needs, that it’s hard to keep the same rules consequences for every student. It is the reason why I struggle so much. It is the expectation of admin to treat each student based on their needs, but it’s also the reason why we have a building wide problem. Dress code and lunch room behaviors are out of control. I teach Art once a week with them and it’s nearly impossible to teach with these students in the room.

        Reply
      • An intervention specialist taught me to say “he/she had a different plan” or “he/she has different goals”. Definitely the same concept as “let’s all focus on ourselves.” I was also taught as a teacher that”fair” does not always mean “equal”, but I have a hard time communicating this to students! Might be an opportunity for the typical kids to learn that life isn’t always fair, I guess.

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        • One of the ways that I heard the difference between “fair” and “equal” is in the circumstance where two individuals are playing at the playground. One falls and scraps his arm the other falls and breaks their arm. Equal would mean that both students receive the same thing which lets say is a Band-Aid and fair would be each student getting what they need…one a cast, the other a Band-Aid.

          Reply
  3. Great, thoughtful article, as always. Gets to the heart of the matter very succinctly. Thanks very much! I agree with your observation that playing favourites with certain students sets them up for a depressive fall later on in life.

    Reply
  4. Agreed, be wary of how you (the teacher) play or show favoritism in the class. I think it’s more common than we realize, but also a part of our nature that is persuaded by certain “appeals”; it needs to be checked. In my experience as a student and teacher, the one’s I’m tempted to show favoritism to are the students with a skill in social charm, or the popular kids, and ironically, not the successful kids who complete their work. Nonetheless, I maintain a strong standard of reward and discipline dependent upon how well they demonstrate responsible behavior.

    Reply
  5. Equal treatment is so important. What you will find is when you do this you will often get a very respectful response that is a great model for the others.

    Reply
  6. Hi! What consequences do you suggest for a student who constantly disrupts trying to be funny— I have tried numerous things and nothing seems to work. If he gets a laugh from anyone that is where his focus is— consequences do not seem to work. We are in a first grade classroom. He has an extremely difficult time following two step directions even when I am sitting by him and giving the directions.
    I think he is very intelligent but allows the desire to be funny, disrespectful to take over. This behavior occurs in other classrooms as well.

    Reply
  7. Thank you Michael,
    I had this realization a couple of months ago while going over some literature on power based behaviour in the classroom. It suddenly dawned on me that one of my best, and ‘favorite students’, was displaying most of the behaviours for seeking power in her own ‘positive way’, and it was creating some negativity in the classroom. I still have a one way to go with this as a fairly new teacher, but maintains impartial status in the classroom is SO IMPORTANT.

    Reply

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