Yin and Yang of Learning: Leonard Bernstein on Education

The great conductor, composer, pianist, writer and educator Leonard Bernstein once said that "teaching is probably the noblest profession in the world--the most unselfish, difficult, honorable profession. It is also the most unappreciated, underrated, underpaid, and underpraised profession in the world." In the same interview in which he spoke these words, he emphasized that education is related to the Latin educere - "to bring forth what is within."

It is this last comment that feels especially arresting to me. I have often heard that education is derived from the Latin "to draw forth" or "to lead out," but it was the additional words "from within" that stopped me. What does "from within" add to our understanding of education? 

Well, for one thing, there is this sense that pent up inside of us, not easily brought forward, is the passion to divulge who we are, to connect with likeminded others, and to use what is shared to create new and powerful collaborations.  This is utterly different from the predominant and passive view of education in which new knowledge is imparted, or even deposited in us by scholars and teachers who are said to possess the wisdom of the ages. In this view, it doesn't matter a whole lot what is inside us.  But in the view of education articulated by Bernstein, success is dependent on active engagement by learners and a probing exploration of who we are and what we bring to the educational setting. The only way to make the most of this opportunity is to create an opening for self and group reflection that is democratic, creative, and constructively critical. Only then, are we capitalizing on the abilities and talents of the people we have convened.

In addition, we need strategies to loosen people up and to unleash their creative and imaginative capacities.  Thoughtful use of music or theatre or dance may be one way to do this, but, in any case, it must include an approach that encourages people to feel more deeply as well as think more incisively, to dream more expansively and to anticipate in a highly practical way the obstacles that may block progress. 

Education, then, is, in part, a process of taking in, but it is even more significantly a way of drawing out what we already know from experience, from the broader culture, and through reference to some notion of a moral imagination. You might almost call this taking in and drawing out the Yin and Yang of meaningful learning.