B. Jeffrey Madoff and Tyler Wagner argue schools focus too much on grades and not enough on watching what each student actually cares about. They propose a cycle of curiosity, exposure, observation, and dialogue, and say asking kids early what fulfills them prevents them from drifting into careers that pay well but feel empty.
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I was having this conversation maybe like a month ago where I think school, that should be kind of the primary thing is like, and I'm not saying that when you're younger, school should be like, hey, 6th grade, you wrote a good paper. This is your path. I'm not suggesting that. But what I'm saying is when you're younger, I feel like a teacher's job should be less about like specifically like grading and I guess giving rules and stuff and more about observing the kids and being like, oh, interesting. Like this one really likes writing or this one is talking all the time, very outgoing. Going and more like jotting down that type of stuff. Because just like yourself, like this podcast makes so much sense for me because I was just always the most like talkative. People have always told me I have like gift of gab or whatever. And it took me a while to start this podcast, but it was very obvious when I was younger that this would— not podcast per se, but, you know, like something with people, right? And my major in college at first was accounting. And it's like, doesn't make any sense. Like if somebody would have observed and been like, hey, this doesn't make any sense. But regardless, I don't know. I just think that would help schools become way more valuable if it was more about observing and less about trying to be like, hey, this is science class, you need to get an A. It's like, well, I don't know, maybe that person doesn't care about science. I don't know. Some people—
yeah, I mean, but you don't know. I mean, in principle I agree with you, but when you're a kid and it's a very, very, very small sample that really adheres to an idea that they end up carrying out through their life. And so I think the essential thing is The observing is important, as you're saying, but it's also really important to expose people to ideas because that exposure, like I was saying before, the exposure is what's so important. And how do you know what you're interested in if you haven't been exposed to it? Being exposed to as much as possible, and then that observation, which is, by the way, putting a lot on a teacher. But I think that if you're talking about the method of teaching, And the teaching should be, I believe, dialogue, observation, as you said, but primarily exposure to a wide range of ideas and then talking about those things. You know, cause I think it's essential to ask yourself, well, why do you like what you like? Or what are the things, especially if you had become an accountant, Tyler, and hated it, but were being paid well and making a good living, are you successful if you hate every day you go to work, even though you're making a lot of money? So what is success for you and what is fulfilling? And I think looking back back to when you were a kid, what really engaged you? What could you do and you didn't totally lost track of time because you were so engaged in what that is? And I think those are critical questions to ask, and we usually don't task ourselves with asking those kinds of questions. And I think that those are questions better asked earlier than later in life, because later in life you have other responsibilities. You may feel, you know, it's the old golden handcuffs. Well, I'd like to, but I know I'm going to replace that income, or I've always wanted to do that, but you know, I can't really take that kind of a chance. And I think it's great to expose yourself to those other kinds of ideas and really learn what drives you.
I think a formula here is like curiosity, exposure, observation, and then repeat, right?
So dialogue.
Yeah. Dialogue. Yeah.
Yes.
And then from that dialogue, you learn from the previous 3 and then you keep repeating. I've been asked before, um, like, how do you find your passion or something? And in my mind, it's, it's less about like sitting there and just thinking about like, what's my passion? And it's more about like you're saying, like, massive exposure. So if you expose yourself to like 100 different career paths, like you will inevitably at least find ones that you like more than the others. You might not find like your core one, but like, you'll know, okay, well, I like being with people rather than alone. Okay. Okay. Well, that cuts out like half of the potential careers, right? So exposure is absolutely key.
