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05/30/2013

The Painter and the Sculptor

“Teaching is nothing like the art of painting, where, by the addition of material to a surface, an image is synthetically produced, but more like the art of sculpture, where, by the subtraction of material, an image already locked in the stone is enabled to emerge.”

--John Taylor Gatto


When I first came across the quote above, I was struck by the powerful metaphor of the sculptor, and not just in its application to education. For the past 100 years, we were busy painting. Our industrial economy required us to synthetically produce an obedient and docile workforce. Teachers were painters, parents were painters, managers were painters. Leadership involved defining the world for and giving instructions to followers, be they children, students, or employees, with little respect for individual differences, passions and aspirations.

The emerging connection economy no longer requires us to produce a conforming and homogenous population. It thrives on authenticity, creativity and differentiation. Individual differences have become the key rather than the obstacle to success. The new economy requires the sculptor--the parent, the teacher, the manager—who helps reveal the unique image locked into each slab. In today's world, leadership involves empowering each individual to find her purpose and live up to her potential.

Being a sculptor is scarier than being a painter because we don’t know what we'll uncover as we chip away at the stone. We secretly worry that the image won't meet our hopes and dreams for that person or will reflect poorly on us. The sculptor is the parent who helps a child pursue a passion in theater, despite the parent's misgivings; the teacher who sees a flicker of genius in a teenager everyone considers a troublemaker and works to bring it out; the manager who allows a young employee to take on an innovative but risky project rather than direct his every move. Being a sculptor requires putting aside fears and relinquishing a measure of control.

Sculpting is, unfortunately, less common than we might care to admit. Most people and institutions are still telling people what they ought to be rather than helping them become what they were meant to be. Giving people their marching orders used to work for us, and it seems safer to rely on what used to work than to try something new. So we work harder and harder at doing what's not working. At the very moment we need to cultivate individuality, we double-down on uniformity. At the very moment we need to encourage creativity and love of learning, we issue "common core standards," insisting on what  “every” child ought to be able to do and when, as if every child was meant to do the same things and be the same person.

We are a learning society—a slow learning society, but faster than most others—so eventually we will overcome our insecurities and shed our outmoded beliefs. Eventually we will learn a new way of teaching, leading and inspiring. The question is: how much more painting must we do before we realize that the image we are looking for is just beneath the surface?

Posted by on 05/30/2013 at 08:20 AM in Diversity, Economy, Education, Social Change, Work |

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Geoff ILearn

Wonderful David. I am a great fan of JTG and have read nearly everything he has written and watched all the videos (few though they are). You have expressed this thought superbly. Thank you. Needed to hear this today.

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