The 3 Rs

At the parents’ meeting for my youngest daughter’s class, the teacher told us about the values model they are working on with the children at the school. She talked about the 3 Rs: Responsibility, Repair and Reconciliation. The idea is that when a child makes a mistake, they must take responsibility, step forward and admit that they were wrong, or that they did something they shouldn’t have, such as picking on a classmate. The second thing is that they must repair the harm done. And if it affects another person, as in a fight, they must reconcile, with one apologizing and the other sincerely accepting the apology.

Regardless of whether we fully agree with that model, what struck me as remarkable is that the teacher said one of the problems of our country is that nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions, and that this shows above all in our political authorities, who dodge responsibility. I found that very much on the mark.

I think it is very important for us to understand that we are responsible for our actions, and that if we make mistakes we must repair them, and not make excuses, or dodge them, or ignore them. Something that is so common in our society. And if we don’t ask forgiveness for our mistakes, if we don’t take responsibility, if we don’t repair, how do we expect reconciliation?

And I’m not only talking about politics; at work too, and in our lives, it’s time we did things well and took responsibility for our actions.

And so that all this isn’t so heavy, I’ll leave you this video by Sinergia, a Chilean band, which speaks to one aspect of taking responsibility: that we should start by doing well the things we are supposed to know how to do: