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- probably not (see below). 2) Yes, that’s his job.</p>
<p>The issue with (1) is that a lot of people confuse “explain” with “blame”. What sounds like a perfectly accurate description to the teller (eg. “The classes were large, the teachers didn’t care, and all the kids that did well were blatantly cheating”) doesn’t come across that way to the listener. The problem is that sometimes the world is unfair and we are the victim of circumstances, but its hard for the listener to distinguish those cases from the others where the person just wants to blame someone/something else for their troubles.</p>
<p>An effective answer to (1) accepts responsibility for the situation without blaming others and explains what is going to be done to prevent it from happening in the future. In other words, not “the teacher sucked” but “I wasn’t understanding the material as presented in class, and now I understand that I should have gone to office hours, worked with tutors at the learning center, and set up groups with fellow students to go over the material”.</p>
<p>But here’s why I say be cautious about this issue. To us, our answers are reasonable and rational. Almost unconsciously we perceive a situation in a way that reflects well on us, rather than looking for what we did wrong and how we could have prevented/solved a problem. So while we can help others reformulate their answers to questions along the lines of (1), for our problems we have a blindness to what we say.</p>