The Box business

My friend Dan Miller wrote a brilliant piece today entitled “Serving Customers or Making Cars?”  In it he talks about how many businesses are more focused on creating demand for their products instead of truly listening to the customers’ needs.  IE…the American auto industry that continues to pump out cars with a 5-year life span instead of high quality ones.  Gotta keep ‘em coming back, eh?

It really made me thing about The Box business.  A while ago, I wrote about how Vincent Van Gogh’s dad, Theodoris, was a man who insisted that if his son didn’t fit the mold it was his kid that was off- not the mold.

Much of our educational system is based upon The Box.  No Child Left Behind, Pre-kindergarten (and hang on to your seatbelts because it’s probably just a matter of time before pre-K becomes mandatory), Achievement tests….pity the poor child who doesn’t fit well within these things- within The Box.

The Box has a whole industry created around it.  If your child has a learning difference or any sort of difference, it is classified and deemed pathological.  Therapy and medication are needed! Whole new specialties are formed.  Perhaps before long universities will be offered PhD’s in Boxology.  Oh, wait…they already have that, it’s just known under different names.

You see, my son Daniel learns differently.  His approach to chickens differs greatly from my approach to chickens.  In my world, I could get a book….read….carefully construct a coop….select the breed….etc… Everyone knows this is how it’s done properly, right?

Actually, I lied.  Because of all those steps I just lined out, I would never get a chicken.  Too much dang work!

Daniel’s approach?  Get the chickens and then run sliding and sailing and slipping in the mud of the sheer exhilarating joy of learning.

It’s the same way he’s learned about aquariums and tropical fish and electricity and plumbing and construction and…..

My most important role is to get out of the way…not insist he learn the way I do.

You’d think I’d learn by now!