"Leading Out" vs "Putting In"

I just started the book The Offsite: A Leadership Fable by Robert H. Thompson. I didn’t even get through the Foreword when I had to stop share some thoughts.

Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge, wrote the Foreword. I read the Leadership Challenge several years ago and enjoyed it. I am thinking I should re-read it soon.

Jim writes about a scene from one of his favorite books turned movie, The Prime Miss Jean Brodie.

“There’s a scene during which Headmistress MacKay call Miss Brodie to her office to chastise Miss Brodie for her somewhat unorthodox teaching methods. Headmistress MacKay comments on the precocity of Miss Brodie’s students. Miss Brodie accepts this as a compliment, not a criticism, and says:

‘To me education is the leading out. The word education comes from the root ‘ex’ meaning ‘out’ and ‘duco,’ ‘I lead.’ To me education is simply a leading out of what is already there.’

“To this Headmistress MacKay responds rather haughtily, saying ‘I had hoped there might also be a certain amount of putting in.’”

“Miss Brodie laughs at this notion and replies, ‘That would not be education, but intrusion.’

Jim then goes on to say, “We agree. The process of personal development should never be intrusive. It should never be about filling someone full of facts or skills. It won’t work. Education should always be liberating. It should be about releasing what is inside.”

Teaching vs. Learning

As an educator, it is hard not to argue with Jim. I doubt he was thinking about our public schools, but some of what he has to say is pertinent. Clearly our students do need to be taught certain skills. Kindergarten is filled with the teaching of skills. This is how we hold a pencil, this is how we line up, this is how we ask for things, etc. Understanding and using technology in the classroom is a skill.

However, it would be hard to argue that much of what we do in education today is about input, or “intrusion.”  We are tasked with taking a list of facts and information and doing our best to fill our students heads with it in hopes that they will be able to replicate it on our high stakes tests. Schools and teachers are measured on their ability to fill students with inputs and have students reproduce the desired inputs on an exam that can be quantified and measured into endless sets of data.

I wonder if we are putting enough emphasis on pulling out what is already in our students’ minds. Is there enough of a balance of “leading out” what our students have within them. If one were to have visited my class during a typical lesson, one would have seen the use of high level thinking techniques and may have wondered where is that in the curriculum. On any typical day my students used De Bono’s Thinking Hats, Toyota’s 5 Whys, Creative Problem Solving, Lotus Blossom charts, forced connections, and list goes on and on. They don’t teach these techniques in teacher preparation school. My kids loved it when I told them how businesses across the world use the 5 Whys, or some other thinking frame. They would go home and brag to their parents. But what they may not have realized is those ideas were already in their heads. I was just helping the to “lead out” what was already there.

So, a balance is what we should seek, but it is hard to measure “leading out” and much easier to measure and therefore fund the “putting in.” Hopefully, we will wake up to need balance both and soon.