How can teachers use their curriculum to train leaders for the future? How can parents encourage their children to lead when they grow up? The first place to start in raising your students into leadership is to change your own education paradigm.
“What in the world do I mean by education paradigm?”
Most of us grew up in a public or private school, which can be likened to a factory. All the students come to the factory or the school. They start in kindergarten and move on to first grade, down the conveyor belt. At each stage of the conveyor belt (or grade level), the student learns the exact same information as everyone else. The students are told what to think. Even though the school may be using tools like classics, the school’s approach to education only teaches students “what to think”.
This type of spoon-feeding or force-feeding teaching is evident in most schools. I don’t think it’s wrong, but it doesn’t accomplish the goal of educating children for the future as leaders. Here’s an example. First, you listen to a lecture. Then your kids start thinking about the what they’ve read and listened. After that, there is a quiz to ascertain if your child knows what the educator believes on these lectures . . . not what your child is “thinking” in these lectures. As said well by John Gatto below.
After you fall into the habit of accepting what other people tell you to think, you lose the power to think for yourself. John Taylor Gatto, A Different Teacher, 2002
When you have a steady diet of lecture, you lose the power to think for yourself. To develop leaders of tomorrow, you need to change the methods used to educate the children of today.
Are you like the teacher who requires textbooks for every learning activity? That’s one way of developing your child to become a follower. Everyone thinks students are not knowledgeable enough to evaluate a particular topic so they depend on the textbook to explain it. Too often, students just learn to read and master only what the textbook wants them to learn. This type of education is very limiting to the student’s capability to think and learn.
Ponder for a moment. Textbooks give students questions to answer. If the student can answer the chosen questions on a test, he can move on to the next piece of information. Textbooks do not encourage students to think outside of the answers in the teacher’s manual. This model has provided our society with highly trained, but poorly educated graduates.
A different method is leadership education, especially in homeschool curriculum. It teaches you “how to think” instead of just “what to think”. Your children should be able to finish schooling and be able to think on their own. Changing to another educational curriculum can be a major life-changer. Here are some ways to set a good foundation for this type of leadership education approach.
As you develop your children to think, you may see some changes happening in your household This new type of education involves the whole family and binds them together so it takes a little time of adjustment. It may first take a toll on the parent because all the effort begins from you. It’s not as easy as handing them books and telling them to start learning and thinking. Those textbooks only serve to teach them “what to think”, not prepare them “how to think” for themselves.
How do you get your kids to know “how to think”. Believe it or not, you should start with yourself. As you begin your education as an leadership educator and as a parent, begin reading one classic. Choose an interesting one. If you need help choosing, get a classic list that is tailored for young adults. After that, get another one until you’ve read four or five classics. With this, you’re on a fine path to leadership education.
As your children see their parents studying and learning, they begin to have a different idea of what education is all about. You will be excited about what you are learning and want to share it with your own children.
After reading four or five classics, get another one to introduce the element of writing. While reading this classic, you should start a reading journal. Put your thoughts on paper about what you’ve read. Be sure to share it with someone so it becomes a lesson well learned.
Next, read aloud an interesting classic with your children. Choose wisely as you make it enjoyable and fun for your kids. Read to them anything interesting, if they’re just starting out with classics. When your kids are ready, have them keep their own reading journals. After this, you can have an engage in an interactive discussion on the classics that they’ve read or heard.
Francis Bacon said, “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.” Reading, writing and discussing is foundational to developing students who think for themselves. If you want your children to be leaders, they must think on their own and classics are the best place to start.
Kerry Beck has been featured in magazines and podcasts and would like you to discover the best leadership education homeschool curriculum by giving you a free mini-course, ” What Is Leadership In Education “?
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