Men are born soft and supple
dead, they are stiff and hard
Plants are born tender and pliant,
dead, they are brittle and dry

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken
The soft and supple will prevail

In education the hard and stiff seem to have prevailed for a long time. It is a vocation in which those who choose to work often do so because they prefer predictability of working on a school.  From The rhythm of the seasons to the familiar lesson plans and tests, teachers are in a unique situation in that they know and can control what is to come unlike any other profession. This can lead to ‘stiff and inflexible’ school climates, which put an emphasis on compliance rather on the education of the whole child (heart-mind-soul). Many of us have experienced this compliance heavy school, and not many of us would go back.

But, Lao-Tzu warns us that the ‘stiff and inflexible, is a discipline of death’. Indeed, those school climates that are stiff and inflexible, that focus on compliance, do kill… they kill creativity (Ken Robinson), they kill passion, they kill a sense of joy about the world, and they kill the sense of wonder in our learning that is so fundamentally important. If you find yourself at a school, where entire faculty meetings are taken up by the discussion of school rules… you are at a school that kills.

On the other hand, the ‘soft and yielding’ schools are ‘disciplines of life’. A life giving school is one…..