I hate that accountability is such a rare commodity these days. I see it everyday in my classroom, especially with my younger kids (freshmen and sophomores). If they get in trouble or get yelled at, their first reaction is to 1) blame it on someone else or 2) completely shut down, play the victim card, and act like I'm the bad guy. I've got curriculum that I've got to get through, but it takes forever because half of my time is spent on disciplinary issues. Not necessarily because they simply misbehave so badly all the time, but because whenever I holler at a kid when they're not doing what they're supposed to do, they always have to try to argue with me about how it's either not their fault that they were doing whatever they were doing, or how I'm the bad guy and they're the innocent victim.
I imagine this type of thing is becoming the norm all over, but it seems extremely prevalent in the school that I teach in. The culture in this school is not conducive to developing young people into quality young adults with good values and ethics. If I didn't enjoy coaching the softball team here so much, I would probably be looking for another place to teach.
If any more experienced teachers (or any parent for that matter) have any words of wisdom to ease my mind about all of this, please feel free to respond or PM me.