Both Can Be True: Systemic Failure and Personal Responsibility in Education

 

Is the failure of our education system a systemic failure or an individual one?

The uncomfortable truth is that it is both.

For decades, education has swung between traditional and progressive models. Each swing has brought moments of innovation, followed by delay, retreat, and loss. Promising shifts stall. Inclusion gets rebranded, diluted, or quietly abandoned. Progress has never been linear.

I believe we are standing at one of those turning points again, particularly when it comes to inclusion. And if we stand by and watch, the outcome will unfold whether we agree with it or not. I am not willing to stand by and watch.

The system is failing. Structurally. Predictably.

It exhausts good teachers. It keeps them overloaded, reactive, and compliance-focused. It leaves little to no space for critical reflection, ethical questioning, or learning different ways of working with children. Over time, survival replaces curiosity. Harm becomes normalized. That context matters.

The system also operates with a quiet understanding of human behaviour. In moments of ambiguity, people look to others before they respond or take action. When no one moves first, no one moves at all. Responsibility diffuses. Inaction becomes the default. The system relies on this hesitation as much as it relies on compliance. It depends not only on participation, but on silence.

But no progress will be made if teachers continue to locate the problem entirely within the system, and the system continues to place the blame back onto teachers. This cycle of deflection keeps everyone busy assigning fault while nothing actually changes.

Broken systems make it tempting to surrender individual responsibility.
But responsibility does not disappear simply because the system is failing.

I believe individual teachers can make meaningful shifts. I believe families who advocate, document, and file human rights complaints can and do create change. I believe students matter.

Teachers still make daily decisions. They still shape classroom culture. They still choose how they respond to difference, distress, and disability. They can question harmful practices. They can learn different ways. They can do things differently.

I have witnessed educators, including those aspiring to leadership positions, act unethically and then work to conceal it. I have seen harm minimized, justified, or reframed as unavoidable, and attributed entirely to “the system.” While systemic conditions may enable harm, they do not excuse individual actions. The failures we are seeing in education are shaped by both broken systems and personal responsibility. Both can be true.

Parents are often led to believe that teachers have the autonomy, education, and professional judgment to do what is best. That we are he experts. Many families want to believe this. Many do. Until harm occurs and the limits of that trust become clear.

I wish there were better options than filing external complaints. I wish there were reliable internal processes that protected children and held adults accountable. For many families, that is not the reality.

Human rights complaints are rarely a first choice. They are a last resort. Chosen after waiting. After hoping. After silence.

There should be an unspoken moral obligation within education to help children.

At the most basic level, that obligation means this. Do not make it worse.

Teachers cannot deny harm. They cannot fully deflect responsibility onto the system and do nothing. They cannot continue harmful practices while claiming powerlessness.

Understanding children’s rights and human rights, and actually upholding them at an individual level, puts pressure on the system. Compliance does not. Silence does not. Deflection does not.

We cannot keep pointing only at the system while refusing to act within it. Burnout and bureaucracy may explain how harm persists, but they do not excuse it.

Accountability is not optional.

Complacency is not an option.

If we want a different future for children, we cannot wait for permission to do better.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead

Change does not begin when systems finally agree. It begins when individuals refuse to participate in harm, choose to act differently, and accept responsibility for the power they already hold.