Gen 200 Week 2 Individual Assignment

Personal Responsibility

GEN/200

26 July, 2013

Personal Responsibility

Heading back to school after all these years, I found myself reflecting on the many attempts through the years to finally finish a degree. Day Personal responsibility is an essential element in every aspect of one’s life. What exactly does personal responsibility mean; the answer is most likely different for everyone. Chuck Gallozzi may have summed it up best when he stated, “Responsibility is not a burden, it is a blessing” (Gallozzi, 2009, title page). Those nine simple words speak volumes in that taking responsibility or holding oneself accountable, answerable, for their actions or inactions, accepting the consequences that result from those actions or inactions and most important, understanding the effect one has on family, friends, loved ones, coworkers, and classmates. Gallozzi went on to say, “No, we are not responsible for all that happens to us, but we are responsible for how we think, feel and act when they happen” (Gallozzi, 2009, Para 1).
It is also important to focus on the word “personal” in personal responsibility.
The purpose is to become self-aware, not judge or make others more personally responsible. Virtually every facet of life requires some level of personal responsibility to achieve happiness and success. Some believe every human being possesses what could be simply referred to as core, or foundational traits that drive nearly every other facet of their lives. A commitment to personal responsibility, or accountability, for one’s health, in other words, keeping healthy; managing one’s emotions, e.g., anger and frustration, and keeping a sound mind, e.g., keeping the mind and intellect stimulated are essential building blocks for achieving a happy and successful
life. The decision to return to college after a 30 year career in the Navy and at 52 required commitment, a commitment to finally achieving a lifelong goal. Taking time to reflect on what drove the on-again-off-again pursuit of furthering education was time well spent, one could say, “a valuable investment of time.” Quickly realizing achieving that goal would require enormous personal responsibility, not only to myself save for my classmates, Learning Team members specifically, as pulling my weight and being an active, not passive, student enriches the experience for everyone. It also requires a commitment to maintaining a life-work-balance as returning to school can quickly consume your time, especially until one settles into a new routine. Completing a self evaluation helped to identify areas of strength, areas of weakness, and develop a plan to exploit the strengths while working to improve in weaker areas. What became increasingly obvious through my research and reading is how personal responsibility is so closely tied to motivation and emotion (Johnmarshall Reeve’s Understanding Motivation and Emotion, 2009). Students who assume the greatest level of personal responsibility often achieve the highest rate of success in the classroom and drawn to careers requiring the same personality trait. In Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, S.R. Jenkins observed high-need achievers prefer just about any occupation that offers challenge, independent work, personal responsibility, and rapid performance feedback (Jenkins, 1987). Because University of Phoenix advocates a Learning Team environment, it sometimes requires one, this student for example, to re-tool their understanding, or mindset of the classroom and how material is delivered to the student. The modern day teacher acts as a facilitator who simply maintains structure in the classroom. A Facilitator led and Learning Team construct places an enormous level of responsibility on the student to initiate his or her own learning while interacting cooperatively within a peer group. It quite literally makes each student personally responsible for learning by switching his or her role from a passive learning to an active learner. The Learning Team approach further enhances the experience by exposing the student to peer feedback and insight from a different perspective or life experience. It is safely stated personal responsibility lies at the core of virtually all we do and its connection to academia touches many facets of the college experience, most important the method in which the student learns and the facilitator/student relationship. We also discovered the importance of knowing ones strengths and weaknesses, and how to exploit both in a learning team environment for a successful college experience. Personal responsibility alone does not one make a successful student. A whole person approach to furthering ones education includes ethical behavior and knowing how to effectively use the tools made available through the Internet and on the University of Phoenix student portal and library.

References
Gallozzi, C. (2009). Personal-development. Retrieved from http://www.personal-development.com/chuck/responsibility.html
Johnmarshall Reeve (2009). Understanding Motivation and Emotion. Retrieved from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/content/eBookLibrary2/content/DownloadList.aspx?assetMetaId=b62184a2-85dd-4350-b4ac-4ddd575bcb6f&assetDataId=86eafe26-e927-4a2d-bd67-fa773d18f377, University of Phoenix online library.

Jenkins, S. R. (1996). Self-definition in thought, action, and life path choices. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 99–111. Retrieved from University of Phoenix online Library