Stephanie Fournet--Responding to Patrick Awuah "On Educating Leaders"

Patrick Awuah’s chilling introduction about the failures in leadership in the hospitals in Ghana grabbed my attention at once, and his story of his own transformation into a leader resonated with my beliefs about educating young people. His transformation began at Swarthmore College where he learned to become a critical thinker in the liberal arts environment.

After working for Microsoft for 10 years, he returned to Ghana and founded Ashesi University, a liberal arts institution that emphasizes critical thinking, ethics education, and servant leadership. He did this because he felt that it was the best way to help his country emerge from a history of corruption, incompetence, and violence into an era of progressive and promising leadership. Critical thinking, ethics education, and servant leadership. This is an ideal model for education in any school, but independent schools especially should excel at these three ideals.

With the restrictions and demands that are placed on public schools, the opportunities to teach and encourage critical thinking are limited at best. It has also been my observation that practices in many private, parochial, or faith-based schools, critical thinking is at times even discouraged for a number of reasons. Some schools emphasize obedience over ingenuity, acceptance over inquiry. They are within their rights to adhere to their own missions, but all schools should prepare their students for an unforeseeable future. The ability to analyze, evaluate, make connections, and draw conclusions; the ability to perceive patterns and apply concepts; the ability to write and innovate—these will be the tools with which the adults of tomorrow will build success. Since we are currently educating our students for jobs that do not yet exist nor can even be imagined, these may be the only skills that they might find relevant two decades from now. As an educator and a parent, I am grateful that my independent school values critical thinking, but I know that we could be doing a better job of it.

While many professionals took some kind of ethics class in college (business ethics, journalism ethics, law and ethics, etc.), I have long thought that ethics training should be a part of continued professional development for every field. Of course, this may not be as necessary if this were a pillar of education everywhere. Do not misunderstand my intentions; I am a firm believer in separation of church and state, but no faith tradition can lay claim to virtues. Virtues such as honesty, reliability, integrity, respect, consideration, etc. are universal and elemental. These should be taught, both passively and actively, at every level of education. Even in religiously affiliated schools, I think that such education could be improved for the betterment of society as a whole.

We rob our students of genuine growth when we fail to provide them with the opportunity to serve others. Whether our students are so privileged that they lack a sense of purpose or they are so insulated that they don’t recognize a perspective outside of their own, legitimately working in service to others can provide a sense of accomplishment and empowerment. Hand in hand with critical thinking and ethics education, it can help to foster a deeper understanding of the world and the human condition. It can help to define a student’s sense of self and vocation. It can create leadership.

Patrick Awuah’s model is simple and amazingly powerful, and I would like to see it at work in more schools at home and abroad.