I’m listening to Seth Godin’s Linchpin1 and early in the book he makes these observations about our education system and teachers.

Why is society working so hard to kill our natural born artists? When we try to drill and practice someone into subservient obedience, we’re stamping out the artist that lives within.

Let me be really clear. Great teachers are wonderful, they change lives. We need them.

The problem is that most schools don’t like great teachers. They’re organized to stamp them out, bore them, bureaucratize them, and make them average.

Godin’s usual focus is business and marketing but he’s also written some very insightful pieces on American education. For more, download his manifesto, Stop Stealing Dreams, “a series of provocations” that he hopes will lead to people taking action, and watch his TEDx talk of the same title.