The Educational Challenge
Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.
Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It’s difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it’s a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.
Schools like teaching compliance. They’re pretty good at it.
To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel. Initiative was a red flag, not an asset.
Of course, now that’s all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Expect the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance.
– Seth Godin
Compliance
- Simple to measure
- Simple to test for
- Simple to teach
- Rewarded with obedience
- Previously valued by employers
Initiative
- Difficult to teach in a classroom
- Hard to showcase at school boards
- Challenging to implement reliably
- Previously seen as a “red flag”
- Now valued by smart organizations
Food for Thought
How might we redesign education to better nurture initiative while still providing necessary structure?