I ran across an interesting story about apologies in the NY Times today. How often do we admit that we are sorry for something? The article noted that a "good" apology contains 3 elements: expression of regret, an assumption of full responsibility, and a plan for preventing similar mistakes in the future. I wonder which of those is hardest for us to say. I'm guessing it is the full responsibility part. It is easy to be sympathetic to the pain or misfortune of another, to be sorry to have caused the hurt. It is easy to think about how the situation might be prevented in the future. But, to accept full responsibility, that is a little tougher. I think our natural instinct is towards "partial responsibility." We are at fault, but there are usually some mitigating circumstances. These can be external (poor directions, poor design) or internal (tiredness, misunderstanding). One of the hardest is "my intentions were good." If I mean well, but do bad, then I should get some credit for my intentions.
I often run into apologies with students. Their apologies often fall into the "I meant well" category. For a variety of reasons, they are unable to carry out their good intentions. I'm going to try giving full apologies in class from now on and see if students follow suit.
