Zen and the Art of Teaching

I re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (by Robert M. Pirsig) recently-- or maybe it was the first time I really read it and I was just pretending back in high school because it sounded cool.

One statement in the book that struck me is this: "We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly."  Daniel Pink could have written that on a grumpy day-- it is moving the discussion of learning and education from the content to the context.

Pirsig (through the voice of his first person narrator) continues: "The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there." He places this in the context of the Greek concept of "arete" (loosely translated "excellence") that refers to the duty of the individual to the self, to the role that the self occupies in the world, and the respect of wholeness and oneness with the world.

I am always hearing folks complain that with the economy these days, schools should be better preparing students for jobs. And that is true. But what about preparing them to live? What about understanding their place in the world as citizens, friends, family members, co-workers, creators, artists, spiritual beings, thinkers? Are we focused so keenly on "tested skills" or "employability" that we have forgotten what it really means to learn and create and be in touch with ourselves-- to pursue "arete?"

"Great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why." (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

Hedgehogs and Armadillos

The Hedgehog Principle (according to Jim Collins' work Good to Great), means you just stick to the main thing... you do one thing and you do it well.

If there is one principle that public education in America has ignored it is this. That is, unless, you consider a smorgasborg to be one thing. I guess a hallmark of American culture is that we want it all, and our schools are a reflection of that.

Hedgehogs roll up into a ball when trouble comes. They focus on survival and longevity. "Back to Basics" is what that was called twenty years ago. If "basics" are "reading writing and 'rithmetic" then this is a failed strategy. But if basics are something more along the lines of Howard Gardner's five ways of thinking: disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical (Five Minds for the Future) then we might be on the right track.

In considering the hedgehog, I remembered Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories" which included the story of the tortoise and the hedgehog who outwitted the jaguar and as they spent more and more time together took on the other's characteristics until they became armadillos...Both the hedgehog and the tortoise had weaknesses that could be exploited: when dropped in water the hedgehog would recoil and when scooped out with a paw the tortoise could be ripped from his shell. The armadillo has the focus of the hedgehog and the armour of the tortoise.... maybe in education we should begin talking about the "Armadillo Principle." We should stick to the main thing-- and make sure we have the armour to withstand the outside attacks that cause us to loose our focus.