Why We Do The Things We Do

In another life, I was on the delivering end of professional development for educators. It always astounded me when I came across someone who was using a particular method without understanding why. My mind almost always goes to the "why." What I came to learn was, there was so much to do, they sometimes skipped over the "why" and went straight to the "how." While I understand the "why" of what they did, I was left to speculate about the advisability of this habit.

Time and again, I would see well-meaning human beings use teaching methods that were not appropriate for the students they were teaching. As progress was denied, Teacher blame families for not doing whatever it is they should be doing, Families blame teachers for not doing their job, Students are caught up in the argument, and Government and Administrators, who insisted the teacher use the method, fail to acknowledge they have created a system that is designed to fail.

The very best educators have a "bag of strategies." They understand the need to keep abreast of research in their field, and also understand that one single strategy will not work with every student; we are too diverse in our humanity, our experiences too broad.

Although my experience has been within the field of education, this phenomenon happens broadly. I remember encountering it in college, both in my classes, and at my part-time job at a fast food restaurant. There, management didn't want you to know the "why's" because they were afraid you'd replace them! By maintaining ignorance of employees, we were kept "in our place."

I always think of these things when it gets close to election time. Remember the saying, "Knowledge is Power?" It's never so true as when making choices. This is why we have reader's advisories, and consumer guides. It's why the Internet is so popular and Michael Moore is rich. Why then, isn't divergent, mind-stretching, questioning valued more in our public school system? Are we churning out a generation of individuals who all think the same?

If you are a parent, I encourage you to teach your children to think critically and question everything. It's where true intelligence comes from and it's not taught in many schools. If you are a student, start asking, "Why?" If you're a teacher, find the answers. The day is coming where you'll need to know the answer.