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Educating leaders, followers, etc.
Approximate quotation from today's speaker at our all-school meeting: "Everyone is educating the leaders of tomorrow, but no one is saying 'Proudly raising the followers of tomorrow.'"
Well, of course, that's because everyone and no one is raising the leaders of tomorrow. Clearly, though, somebody must be educating the followers of tomorrow. To some extent, that's all schools, especially in proportion as they train students to sit still, be passive, give just the "right" answer rather than exploring the questions, move at the direction of bells that don't care whether or not the student was just getting into the subject; in the proportion that schools train students to spout patriotic platitudes rather than critical inquiry into the nature of patriotism, platitudes, and especially their nation's government; the extent to which a school does these things is the proportion in which they are, in fact, training the followers of tomorrow.
All schools, even the best, do some of these things, but I feel fortunate to be teaching in a school that encourages students to think more deeply and further outside the box than many.
I suspect that to some extent what's really needed is not just to educate those who will lead, but to educate those who can question what exactly it means to lead, or even to question what exactly "leaders" and "followers" are and to what extent we can move beyond such categories--but that's asking an awful lot, I know.