Can you do it?

I think it's fair to say that everyone in life has potential, and that with some caveats attached, most people could do anything they really wanted to do.  What gets in the way of this potential is reality, and the lack of opportunity.  There are people who could be the best city traders in the world and make billions, but they never had the education to get them to the point where they have the opportunity to pursue that potential and make it a reality.  There are people who could be the greatest fashion designers the world has ever known, but again they lack the social connection, and to an extent again the education to be able to pursue that career path - although the education in this regard is much more practical than theoretical.

When we talk about potential there is an argument that abounds between those that recognise untapped potential and those who insist that potential is only valid if there is a means to release it.  In other words if you think of an atomic bomb, some would argue that it only contains potential to kill if it can actually be detonated, whilst others would recognise even a bomb that has no detonator still has the potential to become a deadly weapon, with the right tools and technical expertise.

For the sake of settling this argument in regard to this post, if you define potential as something that could be developed into something more, discarding whether or not any effort is ever made, then potential exists even when there is no means to release it.  This does open up an interesting debate about whether or not everyone has the same potential, or whether some people just don't.

I said above that I think it's fair to say that everyone does have potential, it's just a question of whether it can be unleashed.  If however you want to advocate that potential is only valid when it has a means to be released then you're pushed into a very difficult corner when it comes to education.  To accept that some people just don't have potential would be to accept that some people just can't be taught.  This opens up a messy debate about how much effort teachers and schools should put into helping students who struggle.  The debate can extend even further into life and politics and raises the question if people don't have potential, how do you help those who will consequently have no hope that their lives could ever improve?

I believe that everyone has potential and that the real issue is about finding ways that work for different people.  The one-size-fits-all school of thought I think is outdated.  To believe that everyone must learn in the same way is archaic.  I believe if a wider array of teaching methods were employed then there would be many more students who could realise their potential.

There is however another side to this belief and that is the flip-side of potential.  Whilst you as a teacher seek to release the potential within students, there has to be an acknowledgement that your teaching in itself contains potential and you won't necessarily have the opportunity needed to be able to realise your own potential.  In other words, teachers need to recognise the limit of their ability and know when a student can't be reached through any means available to them, at that point you can then try and create new ways to teach, or create new opportunities to open up alternative paths that may lead to the result you want.

When a student is encouraged to understand how the answer to a question is found, not just to remember the question and answer pairing, then you create a deeper level of comprehension.  In my time I have met many teachers, and their abilities ranged from amazing beyond belief, to truly abysmal.  The two greatest teachers I ever had the pleasure of being taught by were my high school Maths and English teachers.  Both knew and understood their subjects with such depth that you could ask them any question and they would have an answer.  Both subjects crucially relied on the students' comprehension of the subject matter in order to pass.  You couldn't memorize the answers to Maths problems you had never seen before, you had to understand how to find the answer in order to do it yourself.  You couldn't read every book ever written and memorize the analysis of those books to be able to answer questions on their content, you had to be able to understand something presented to you that you had never seen before and be able to deconstruct it and answer questions you were asked about it.

The worst teachers I ever had I will not name the subjects as they could possibly identify themselves if they read this.  In their subjects there was only 1 answer to each question and the questions were always the same because the subject itself never changed.  These subjects were so rigid that there was no room for interpretation.  You were actively encouraged to take the question, learn the answer, and write it almost verbatim when it came to the exams you had to pass.  I hated these subjects because there was no element of intelligence to them at all they were purely tests of memory.  With a few sheets of paper you could have wrote every answer down, took it to the exam and copied it across and passed with flying colours.  It's not surprising then that these teachers made almost no effort to actually teach their subjects, instead they tested only memory.  They didn't answer questions about those subjects either which infuriated me the most, a teacher is supposed to be able to answer a student's questions.

If everything in life comes down to potential, and the question is simply do you have it or not?  Then if you do, how can you unleash it.  If you don't, then how do you get around the fact that you can't do it yourself?