Cook: Whose fault is it?

photo David Cook

A few weeks ago, Bart Wallin conducted an experiment.

The history teacher at McCallie School walked up to students and faculty on campus - randomly, with no rhyme or reason - and asked one single question.

Whose fault is it?

"There was completely no context," said Wallin. "I just asked them to answer that one question."

To the athlete in the weight room: Whose fault is it?

To the teacher going to class: Whose fault is it?

To the coach: Whose fault is it?

"It began as a thought experiment for a devotional I gave trying to illustrate that we often blame others for our problems," he said.

Wallin's theory: leadership, goodness and responsibility are yoked together. The ones among us with sturdier backbones, clear vision and grit are the same ones willing to stand up - first - and say: Yes, I'll take responsibility for that.

Yes, I'll own that mistake.

Doing so also leads to fixing things. When you own the problem, you also own the way to the solution.

"In a society that seeks to assign blame after events have happened rather than reconcile and mend wounds, people that accept blame have the ability to lead us in great directions," said Wallin.

Oh, my. Who talks like this anymore?

Nobody on the campaign trail, where I-didn't-inhale-responsibility-taking is taboo. Were a politician to stand up, with a dozen microphones in his or her face, and take responsibility - fully, sincerely - for mistakes made, I think we'd fall over, dumbstruck, quivering with delight.

(Who are you and what have you done with our congressman?)

Of course, I'll take responsibility here as well: The media sabotages any such efforts, salivating as it does over the juicy and the tabloid without any desire for mature reconciliation. We're interested not in healing, but heartache.

So, like any good educator, Wallin's work is counter-cultural.

"I sound like an old-school preacher and I'm not trying to. But individuals need to be reminded of certain core, uncompromising things. There is dignity in that. To be responsible," said Wallin, a '99 McCallie grad and father of three.

Wallin, who's also a coach and dorm head, has intervened in more than one fight or dispute. Too often, boys (and we the adults) are quick to blame the other, instead of stepping forward into that vulnerable yet powerful space and admitting their own fault.

It's hard to do that.

But not impossible.

"Successful people own mistakes," Wallin said.

That's just what happened in his experiment.

In the weight room, the athletes who were working hard - not lifting the most, but working the hardest - immediately answered Wallin's question.

It's my fault, they said.

"It was knee-jerk," Wallin said.

Across campus, the devoted students who were committed to the education said the same.

It's my fault.

So did the state-champion coaches. The teachers who've perfected the craft. The students who always volunteered for the extra-curricular, extra stuff.

Whose fault it is?

It's my fault.

"To a person," Wallin remembered.

Others - athletes working so-so hard, students with flat-tire grades, kids not known as leaders - answered differently.

"They jokingly laid the blame on the guy next to them," he said.

Sure, nobody wants a student body that blindly assumes responsibility without knowing the reasons why. But that wasn't Wallin's point.

He mentioned Richard Henderson, the McCallie strength coach.

Henderson has the older athletes serve the younger ones. Seniors re-rack the freshmen's weights; juniors help sophomores learn correct technique. Henderson preaches community: The way one athlete acts affects all of us.

"He cares a lot about technique and not numbers," said Wallin.

I wonder if we've gotten it backward, caring more in our society about numbers, fame and fortune than the way of devoted, servant leadership.

"But it's not about that," Wallin said. "It's about doing what's right. A leader bears more responsibility. If we want our kids to be leaders, we have to teach them how to do that."

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.

Upcoming Events