Apologize OR Empathize?

Are you using the right one?

Picture this:

A teacher is standing in front of a class of 40 students the first day of school. She is 8 students OVER the district’s class size limit, but the counselling office has at least two weeks to balance the class sizes out.

She begins the first day by handing her students a set of classroom expectations and goes over them. Her set of classroom expectations includes manners and behaviors that create a positive learning environment for all. These include things like

#1. Be in your seat when the bell rings.

TEACHER: (explaining her reasoning) I take attendance by sight. I match the empty desk with the space on my seating chart. If you are seated elsewhere and your desk is empty, I may mistakenly mark you absent.

(This was not a huge issue when the names were handwritten on a slip of paper that was collected by a hall-roaming student, but when electronic attendance was instituted, it was difficult to “unmark” a student. It would appear that the “unmarked” student was tardy, and that became a whole different issue. Oh, and don’t get me started on attendance on scan-tron bubble sheets.)

#2. If you finish the in-class assignment, please work quietly at your desk on something else.

STUDENT: Why can’t I talk to my friends?

TEACHER: That can become disruptive, and everybody has the right to work in an environment where they can focus.

#3. Cell phones are to be turned off and placed in your pocket, backpack, or purse. Not on your desk.

TEACHER: This is district policy.

STUDENT: It’s a stupid policy.

Since the teacher had placed a textbook on each desk between classes, she assigns the reading of the introduction to the text while she cycles around the room recording the number in each textbook.

TEACHER: (looking up as she starts up the next row of desks) Ebeneezer, would you please put your phone away. You’re to be reading the text.

EBENEEZER: Oh, sorry. (Stuffs the phone in the top of his backpack)

TEACHER: (after reaching the end of the row, looks up again) Ebeneezer? I asked you to put that phone away.

EBENEEZER: So-rry. I’m done reading. I didn’t have anything else to do.

TEACHER: Put it away.

EBENEEZER: Sorry. You could at least say please. Geesh.

TEACHER: (after finishing with the book numbers goes to her desk — looks up) Ebeneezer, your phone?

EBENEEZER: SORRY.

TEACHER: (frustration setting in on day one) If you were truly sorry, you wouldn’t have your phone out a second time.

How many times do you use the words “I’m sorry” and then a few days later commit the same offense?

I feel like today’s society over-uses the words “I’m sorry.” They don’t carry the weight they used to, like we’ve erased the emotion and meaning behind them.

What is an apology?

The word “apology” can be defined as “a written or spoken expression of one’s regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another.”

During my years teaching, I wanted, even expected, my students to understand that when they used the words “I’m sorry” that it meant that they would work hard not to repeat the behavior. Some understood, but others apologized for their behavior every day without changing.

In the past ten to twenty years, I have seen people apologize for the actions of their ancestors and for the actions of the leaders from the past — both groups dead and buried.

We can’t apologize for the wrongs of the past. If we did, we would be apologizing back to the dawn of time.

We can’t apologize because we are NOT the person(s) that behaved offensively or badly. We did NOT personally insult, fail, injure, or wrong generations dead and buried.

AND, I can’t apologize for someone else’s actions because that eliminates the power of an apology to help the offender truly recognize weaknesses in his own behavior and actions and change.

Those actions, behaviors, and offenses of the past don’t belong to us.

It’s NOT our behavior and we can’t change the behavior of past generations because they have long ceased to exist on this earth and are NOT able to CHANGE.

Let me put this in a fictitious scenario:

PROTESTER: Aren’t you ashamed of the fact that your people owned slaves?

ME: Come again?

PROTESTER: Your ancestors. They owned slaves.

ME: Ah, no, MY ancestors did not arrive in America until the 1880’s. The Civil War was over by then, and Lincoln had delivered his “Emancipation Proclamation.”

PROTESTER: Come again?

ME: My great-grandfather didn’t leave Sweden until the 1880’s. I can’t apologize for something he never did, let alone for something he did or might have done.

What we can do about the wrongs of generations that have gone before us

I’d like to say we can do nothing, but I believe that that attitude is what has gotten society into the predicament that it is in today. Unfortunately, too many people believe that past is our present. That they need to forgive or be forgiven for their ancestor’s actions.

(Poppycock: Unless you want to hold a seance, the generations who are dead and buried cannot apologize for the things they did.)

Instead, let’s

#1. recognize that some of the actions, behaviors, and words of our ancestors were unacceptable or inappropriate.

By recognizing the actions, behaviors, and words of past generations that today’s society identifies offensive, unacceptable, and inappropriate; we can recognize the same (if at all) in each of us and work to improve our lives and the lives of everyone around us.

#2. make sure we learn about our country’s history — ALL of our country’s history: North, South, East, and West.

I grew up in the North, Northern Illinois precisely, and lived there for better than 50 years. One year, I was researching a historic novel that began at the end of the Civil War in Tennessee. Living in the North, I found nothing that related ANY of the kind of information I was looking for. During history class in high school, we basically covered the victor’s side of the entire war. I wanted the perspective of a soldier from Tennessee. Moving to Tennessee in 2015 afforded me that information.

If we are going to declare that generations of the past committed offenses that are inexcusable, we NEED to see the whole picture.

#3. learn about other people’s heritages and traditions AND accept that they are valuable to other people.

One of the school districts I taught in had a large Hispanic population. It was important to learn about the Hispanic culture to understand my students. Their traditions are extremely important to them and I worked to learn why.

In doing this, we can empathize with how people feel today about the past, but since the past is just that, past, we can’t change it.

Change is the most important aspect of making an apology, so apologizing for past generations makes no sense.

If YOU are going to apologize, apologize with the understanding that YOU are going to right the wrong YOU did, AND assure the person to whom YOU are apologizing that YOU will NOT commit the offense again.

But please, STOP apologizing for the wrongs of past generations.

Apologize for yourself.

Fix yourself.

You have control over that.

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Rebecca Writes The articles and comments in Rebecca Writes relate to living in this crazy world. Articles about being a parent and grandparent to traveling to relationships to education to health and wellness to being a decent human being — and beyond.

Rebecca (Becky) spent 34 years in a teaching career, but when she retired in 2014, she picked up her pen and pursued her passion to write. As a high school English teacher, Becky held the philosophy that she wouldn’t give any writing assignment that she personally wouldn’t or couldn’t do. That philosophy strengthened and broadened her own writing.

In addition to publishing her writing on various platforms, Becky also blogs at Life is for Living, a blog to encourage, motivate, and help others live the best life possible. As an extension of Life is for Living, she also publishes a weekly newsletter, Let’s Chat. (Check it out HERE.) Life is for Living also has a social media presence with the group Coffee on my Porch. (Check it out HERE.)

After teaching writing for 34 years, Becky began Ink & Keyboard, a blog for writers at all levels. She supplements what she writes on the blog with a subscription newsletter, The Writer’s Notebook (Check it out HERE.), the social media group Ink & Keyboard (Check it out HERE.), and a Medium publication Ink & Keyboard (Check it out HERE.).

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