Seth Godin, a major business blogger recently made this post, entitled “It’s easier to teach compliance than initiative”:

Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.

Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It’s difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it’s a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They’re pretty good at it.

To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel. Initiative was a red flag, not an asset.

Of course, now that’s all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance.

So with everything being “different now,” Moneythink has actively embraced the noncompliant attitudes of many high school students by:

* Facilitating lively discussion and critical discourse rather than boring, prescriptive lecture
* Teaching material from the students’ perspectives rather than attempting to force it down their throats
* Teaching them material that is directly valuable and applicable to them rather than esoteric theory

It’s more important that our students develop a strong sense of initiative and purpose than that they comply with every rule society has put in place for them. This is because it’s only when one feels a greater purpose and responsibility is one truly able to understand why compliance is important. Our students shouldn’t comply unwillingly and submissively out of fear of punishment; they should comply because they understand the greater benefit to themselves and society.

Post by Ted Gonder

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