Teaching Young Men: A Managerial Parable

There was a church class for teenage boys whose teacher was extremely gifted at teaching.  But many Sundays he didn’t teach them at all–he had one of the boys do it.  They did it poorly.  They taught by rote or tried to liven it up by being jokey or playful in ways that were inappropriate for what they were trying to teach.  He would issue gentle pointers here and there, and some minor improvements would happen, but on the whole the boys’ lessons continued to be much worse than his.

A visiting friend asked him why he allowed the boys to degrade his average output in this way.

“True,” the teacher said, “but I won’t be around forever.  The  only way for them to become good teachers someday is to start by being bad teachers.”

The friend was puzzled.  “But you said it yourself,” the friend said, “you won’t even be around then.”