So, as the theory goes, when you see your kid up a tree or treating a high wall like a balance beam, instead of ‘be careful! You might fall!’ you say, ‘have you thought about how you’re going to get down?’ It encourages them to think their actions through and make decisions based on the situation.

Martin Wright, Transforming caution into critical thinking

Love this from Martin. And I fully relate to his strategy of finding good advice on managing people (and clients) in parenting books.

I’m also a fan sometimes of just letting people learn and fail for themselves, in safe and low risk environments (so, not a technique for tree climbing!). The risk in these cases however is ending up in an ‘I told you so’ position, which I wrote/ranted about a long while back. As soon as learning involves frustration and defensiveness, teachers and learners have both lost.

Ultimately then, this is a perfect summary of how I think we should approach teaching and learning:

When I’m coaching I’m not trying to tell people what to do; I’m teaching them how to think. So rather than giving words of caution, I want to guide them through their decision-making, having them check their own thought process.

Learning how to think and question, is learning how to learn.