Educating Educators

A while ago I had a conversation with a friend on becoming a leader and raising up other leaders, with the question just being how do you do that? How do you mould a person in such a way that others will be inspired by their presence and gravitate towards the ineffable authority that each leader must carry?

The answer, he told me, was very simple. Firstly we must acknowledge that everyone has the ability to lead,  the only difference is in their capacity. We all lead in our daily lives, whether it be leading ourselves to the coffee pot in the morning or leading a group of friends in either physical, emotional or mental discussion. The term "capacity" here simply regers to how many people an individual can lead effectivley; some (like Nelson Mandela/Steve Biko/ President Kruger) have a great capacity and are usually found leading nations or corporations. Some people however have a smaller capacity and usually lead on a smaller, but no less important, scale ; for it is in scale alone that these differ.

The second point he made was that in training a leader, train them the way you yourself would have liked to be trained. This lets the training process continually change to best serve those using/doing it while still ensuring that the knowledge and experience of our existing leaders are passed on to the next generation. With the benefit of hindsight we can also correct mistakes our own leaders and trainers made adwell as include information we feel was left out that should be brought in.

But what, you ask, is the point of all this discourse on leadership; or is the goal merely to see words on a page that I release into the gaping maw and crowded platform that is the Internet? Simply this: at it's bare and  fundamental level Teachers and Educators are leaders of thought who usher and lead students from idea to idea, conclusion to conclusion, with knowledge as the eternal end-goal. They are leaders,  each with a capacity of their own, and so they can and should be trained as such.

In educating Educators then we must train them as we the existing ones would have liked to be trained; let their education be the sum of our education, experience and ideals. This training must remain open and flexible, as if you say one thing for the human race (and students in particular); say they are changing.