Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

Randall, as the resident expert on free will, I can give you one example of how a school can empower its children.

Each day a child is asked to do a painting. It won't be much and they're only given five or ten minutes to do this. Since they do it every school day, it's fun and if they just want to doodle that's fine. Most of the time they do something more interesting because - well, it's more interesting than bland doodles, isn't it? Anyway, they stop after ten or so minutes, put the paintings to dry and get on with whatever they were doing.

At the end of term, each child then has a stack of paintings. They get to choose one.

Each and every child in that classroom can find one painting of which they can be truly proud. Even the kid who isn't any good at painting will have - almost by accident - painted something worthwhile. That isn't important: what is important is that this child knows how hard it was to paint, and is still proud of the fact that they painted it. That's empowerment.

Yet the key to the issue hasn't even been mentioned yet. Because this is the key to a school being able to empower their charges. Did the teacher tell the children what to look for? Did the teacher give the children a mark out of ten?

No.

The children decided for themselves, drew from their own likes and dislikes, their own perception. That is how to empower.