Insist on Yourself

Richard Feynman is one of my idols. I've read most of what he has written or said. I've watched "The Greatest Mind Since Einstein" a few dozen times. He inspires me to think, wonder, and challenge.

A friend shared with me Emerson's Self-Reliance. I didn't make the connection at first, but then later, I realized that it could have been Feynman writing those same words:

"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession."

I wonder about learning, education, leadership and teaching. I wonder about these things all the time. Annoyingly so. I have little else I can talk about.

But lately, I've wondered specifically about what we are trying to do in education. Do we truly promote "insist on yourself" or do we demand that students "imitate". I want to believe the former is the case, but as a realist, I am compelled to concede that it is most likely the latter. I think all too often: Originality is not cultivated, but decimated & Contrary views are not explored, but ignored.

This is systematic and systemic. Historically the role of public education was to blend America and that legacy seems to continue - although not as effectively (for better or for worse). All of this testing, testing, testing, reinforces the authoritarian nature of education in America and perpetuates our inability to support novel thought and creative expression.

There is a line in the the movie "The American President" where the President says that "...America is advanced citizenship". Education is the prerequisite for this advanced citizenship - and it is unconscionable to deny anyone that opportunity. But America is also formed around the concept of choice - and there is where we seem to fail as a system. We give the impression of choice (would you like to be beaten over the head with a bat or a club) and the illusion of complex thought.