Teaching personal and social responsibility

In Hellison’s model, there are five levels of personal and social responsibility. They are:

• Level 0: Irresponsibility – Ākonga are unmotivated, and their behaviour might include interrupting, verbal abuse, intimidation, and 'putting down' other students.
• Level 1: Self-control – Ākonga may not participate fully, but control their behaviour sufficiently so as not to disrupt the rights of other students to learn and participate.
• Level 2: Involvement – Ākonga are actively involved in the subject matter, and are willing to try new activities.
• Level 3: Self-responsibility – Ākonga are able to work without supervision and increasingly take responsibility for their own actions.
• Level 4: Caring – Ākonga extend their sense of responsibility by cooperating, giving support, showing concern, and helping others.

Strategies that may encourage awareness of personal and social responsibility include:

• Teacher talk – describing behaviour with reference to the levels.
• Modelling – demonstrating responsible attitudes, values, and beliefs.
• Reinforcement – encouraging positive attitudes or behaviour, and raising awareness of personal and social responsibility.
• Reflection – providing opportunities for considering behaviour in relation to the levels.
• Student-sharing – opportunities to share opinions and experiences about behaviour in relation to the levels.
• Specific strategies – using specific strategies to increase student interaction at a particular level (for example, peer-teaching at level 4).

The personal and social responsibility model provides students with opportunities to:

• reflect on their attitudes, values, and behaviour
• appraise the effect their attitudes, values, and behaviour have on others
• aspire to increasing levels of personal and social responsibility.

This approach is incorporated in the sport studies unit Heart running.