A Lesson from Flight School

When I fly dual-control Cessnas with fellow pilots we have a distinct procedure to let each other know who is in control of the airplane.

“I have control.” “You have control.”

In most classrooms, by contrast, the teacher never gives up control. 

For some reason we continue to insist upon controlling and managing every aspect of the learning process. Like I wrote in Lego, School, and the Box (parts I and II) we continue in this insane practice of telling children what to learn, when to learn it, how to learn it, and with whom to learn it.  

I am currently working with a highly respected colleague on a student-led learning process and the most difficult aspect for him is moving from the front of the classroom to the back.  I respect him for that admission.  It is difficult to give up control.  I’m sure it was also difficult for my instructor to step out of that airplane and let me fly it on my own for that first go-around.  But it was that first go-around, that first time alone in the airplane, in which I realized the power and freedom of flight – not to mention the endless possibility of human imagination and my own abilities. 

For hours before that first solo flight my instructor was there beside me – demonstrating, watching, tutoring, and encouraging.  He even jumped back into the airplane to teach me some more after those first few hours of solo flying. These things we do in schools, as they’re currently incarnated, very well.  What we could learn from flight school, however, is how to remove ourselves from the pilot’s seat.

I shudder, metaphorically and realistically speaking, to think that some of our children will never have the opportunity to hear the words “you have control.”  At what point, given these circumstances, will they discover their own endless potential?