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How schools
really kill creativity
It's Time to take
All Education and Training
to the Next Level
The world has changed. But the way we teach — and learn — hasn't changed. We're all still being trained by our schools, colleges and professional trainers for the 19th century.
Of course, everyone knows that something needs to change. But the conversation about what needs to change hasn't changed much either since the 19th century.
Most bloggers and thought leaders today propose these types of changes —
- change the curriculum
- smaller class sizes
- move beyond standardized tests
- place equal emphasis on the arts
- be more fluid with class schedules
- design classes around what students want to learn
- customize the curriculum to each student
- allow for differences in how each student learns
- make it interesting, stimulating, inspiring
- intermingle students from different levels
- higher pay for teachers
- recognize the inherent creativity within every student
- connect lessons to the real world
- create opportunities to apply the learning
- train for morals, ethics, happiness — not just status, wealth and success.
But all of these merely skim the surface.
It is time to get to the root of what's ailing education and training today.
And don't limit the conversation to schools! The problem is
not limited to schools. It is endemic throughout today's education system. It includes schools, colleges, universities, self-improvement and most definitely professional training and development.
It is time to re-evaluate
The current methodology is about training students to think like cooks. But, in the 21st century, what students need to learn is
Until the training methodology is fixed, none of the other changes will make much of a difference.
What will make the BIG difference?
In a nutshell —
Cooks are taught recipes.
In the real world, that's the equivalent of being taught answers, rules, laws, processes, techniques, methods, formulas, scripts, processes and best practices.
Chefs are taught at an entirely different level. They are developed to understand the underlying ingredients.
In the real world, that's the equivalent of mastering the context, questions, core or principles.
Why does this difference matter?
The current training methodology is churning out cooks. Basically, teachers and trainers transfer the answers and recipes
We've been warned
We've been ignoring the warnings —
The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your own wisdom.
Kahlil Gibran
If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future.
Maria Montessori
If our schools, colleges and trainers continue using the cook-training methodology they've been using for centuries,
It is time to
radically overhaul our training methodology — from cook-training to chef-guiding.But how many have the courage to even consider the change necessary?
Chef-guiding is
Cooks need repetition
Chefs understand
Cook-training is about transferring answers and recipes. Students are dumped with so many recipes to memorize and so little time to memorize them all, they forget most of it.
This is a massive problem. To combat it, many teachers and trainers use "repetition, repetition, repetition" as their mantra. But —
These repetitions, reminders and regurgitations add to the student load, making it even less likely they'll remember anything.
If a student didn't get — or understand — the training the first time, repetition will do very little to improve that understanding. If we need a band-aid like repetition, shouldn't we be evaluating whether something is fundamentally wrong with our teaching methodology?
The focus on memorization edges out understanding. Without understanding, there can be no
transformation .
Chefs are developed to understand the underlying ingredients, context and principles. The specific goal of chef-guiding is to continuously deepen the student's understanding of the ingredients.
Cooks learn bits and pieces
Chefs integrate
Cook-training is about piecemealing answers and recipes into digestible bits.
For example, with math schooling, addition is taught separate from subtraction … separate from multiplication … separate from division — even though they are all different aspects of essentially the same thing.
In the same way, with professional training, relationship is taught separate from teamwork … separate from leadership … separate from selling … separate from presenting — even though they are all different aspects of essentially the same thing.
With cook-training, information is parsed into so many bits and pieces that it seriously
Chef-guiding is entirely different because it is about
The student is specifically guided to understand, for example, the
Cooks are dependent
Chefs are liberated
With cook-training, the student must keep returning to the trainer for more recipes as they encounter new or unfamiliar situations. This promotes a dependency on the trainer — where the student's growth is
The greatest sign of success for a teacher … is to be able to say, "The students are now working as if I did not exist."
Maria Montessori
An essential element of chef-guiding is to raise the student to a level where they no longer need the trainer. Indeed, chef-guiding is about liberating the student so they can even surpass the trainer.
Mainstream teachers and experts want you to keep returning to them — and keep paying them. They're not helping you; they're helping themselves.
Aman Motwane
Cooks are followers
Chefs are leaders and innovators
With cook-training, the student is trained to follow recipes and 'best' practices and the "accepted body of knowledge."
Schools teach you to imitate. If you don't imitate what the teacher wants, you get a bad grade.
Robert Pirsig
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
As a result, cook-trained students develop the
The training methodology determines whether the student will become a follower — or a leader.
The training methodology determines whether the student will become an imitator — or an innovator.
Cook-training boxes students within the "accepted body of knowledge." It limits their perspective. It
It
doesn't matter what other changes schools, universities and trainers make. Without an overhaul from cook-training to chef-guiding, there is very little hope that students will learn to tap their inherent creativity.
Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you … was made up by people that were no smarter than you. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.
Steve Jobs
Cooks are full of insights
Chefs are insightful
Cook-training is about loading up the student with the trainer's insights.
However —
You can be
full of insights, butstill be empty with results.You can know a lot of techniques and recipes … and
still lose sight of the the most important things.
You can know a lot of techniques and recipes … and
still not see which of the "insights" you've been taught arein correct,in complete orin consequential.
No mere technique will transform an ordinary performer into a superstar.
Fujio Cho, Past President, Chairman, Toyota
You can know a lot of techniques and recipes … and
still not know how to adjust things as situations change.If you are
full of insights, you'll have a tendency to apply the same insights even as the situation changes.
You cannot solve any problem the same way
twice .Herb Kelleher, Founder, Southwest
It doesn't do a student much good to be full of insights or recipes.
What's necessary now is students who are insight
Great trainers already understand this difference. Ordinary trainers struggle to see the difference.
We cannot create observers by saying 'observe,' but by giving them the power and the means for this observation.
Maria Montessori
Cook-training makes students
To counter this problem, many cook trainers chant, "Think!" … "Think differently!" … "Think outside the box" — but they don't give them the means for this observation.
Chef-guiding gives students
Cooks chase the past
Chefs create the future
Answers, methods and recipes are, by definition,
limited to very specific situations.
Context, questions and principles are
always relevant in every situation.
Answers and recipes quickly become
obsolete or fall out of favor.
Context, questions and principles are eternal and remain
timeless .
Cooks use recipes from the past on the future.
Chefs create the future. They are the future.
Cooks get trained
Chefs are developed
Most people think training and development are pretty much the same thing. They are not.
Cooks get trained with methods and recipes.
This is the 'mere transference of knowledge' that Maria Montessori cautioned us about.
It does not prepare students for the future.
Chefs are developed and developed to understand the underlying ingredients so well that they can them to create extraordinary results — without thinking, and without ever needing a recipe from anyone.
Cooks are trained for a static, predictable world; they are neither nimble nor swift enough for today's new world.
Chefs are developed to be nimble and ready to respond swiftly to a dynamic, unpredictable world.
Why Modern Education
Fails You
Despite all of the above, almost
Why?
Because those who are teaching and training you today were themselves cook-trained. They were themselves taught recipes, methods, rules and laws.
And also because
They
And so, unfortunately, the cycle continues — ad infinitum.
There's another, more insidious, reason why the move to chef-guiding is so slow —
Why Teachers and Trainers
don't want you to know anything about this
The transformation from cook-training to chef-guiding is
Understandably, teachers and trainers are fiercely resisting this
It's human nature to resist change — especially when one's livelihood is threatened.
You owe it to yourself to leave all those antiquated teachers and trainers behind and prepare yourself for the future …
The Future of Education
developing students to think like chefs is the
It is the future of your children.
It is the future of business — and of
It is the future of your relationships — all of them.
It
If you are a parent, make sure your children are being developed like chefs, not trained like cooks.
If you are a manager or leader or in HR, make sure the people in your organization are being developed like chefs, not trained like cooks.
If you are an individual contributor or professional, make sure your trainers are developing you like chefs, not training you like cooks.
Only
1 List develops you like a chef.
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