Most schools reward kids who give the right answer — but real life rewards kids who know how to ask the right question. If you want your child to lead instead of simply follow, thinking differently about education is where everything starts.
This episode shows you exactly how to shift from raising compliant students to raising confident thinkers, with 3 practical changes you can make starting this week:
✅Why followers wait for answers but leaders learn to ask better questions
✅The difference between checking memory and developing real thinking skills
✅How discussion builds discernment, communication, and confidence in your kids
✅Why one better question this week can do more than an entire curriculum change
✅What two brothers with no college degrees teach us about thinking differently
✅One practical thing to do this week that builds wisdom instead of knowledge
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Show Notes:
Followers Wait for Answers. Leaders Ask Better Questions.
Imagine your child is 25 years old. The boss gives them a problem no one has seen before. How does your child react? Do they say — well, what am I supposed to do? Or do they say — let me think through this?
That's the difference between followers and leaders. Most schools reward students with the right answer. Leaders become leaders because they learn to ask the right questions.
Today I want to challenge you with one of the biggest assumptions we've inherited from the current school system.
The School System Was Built for Workers, Not Leaders
Traditional education often rewards memorization, compliance, following directions, and getting the right answers. Those skills have value. But leadership requires something different. Leaders evaluate. Leaders solve problems. Leaders make decisions where there isn't one correct answer.
The Wright Brothers Never Had Engineering Degrees
Most people think of the Wright brothers as one person. There were really two of them — and they used their individual giftedness together.
Wilbur Wright was steady and focused. His father described him as never rattled in thought or temper. He was highly intelligent, an avid reader, a talented writer, and a gifted speaker. After an accident in high school, he was uncertain of his health and future, dropped his plans to attend Yale, and spent most of his time alone — reading and thinking.
Orville Wright was curious, optimistic, energetic, and impulsive. He had a wide range of interests, a quick mind, and was always coming up with new inventions. He actually chose a series of advanced college prep courses in his junior year of high school — but that meant he couldn't graduate at the end of his senior year. So he just decided not to attend school that term.
That's right. The co-inventor of the airplane never graduated from high school.
Despite their lack of formal diplomas, both brothers committed to broad learning. All the reading they did would have been equivalent to — or bigger than — a modern four-year college degree. And they did it on their own, outside of school.
Neither one had an engineering degree. They owned a bicycle shop. They questioned accepted scientific ideas instead of assuming the experts were right. They built wind tunnels, tested hundreds of wing designs, and learned by experimenting. Their willingness to think independently led to the first successful powered flight.
They weren't simply collecting information. They were learning how to think through problems. And that's what I want for my kids — and I think that's what you want for yours too.
The Questions That Develop Thinking — Not Just Memory
Instead of asking what did you learn today, ask what surprised you today? What question do you still have?
There's a real difference. What did you learn just repeats facts. What surprised you and what questions do you still have make your kids think. One checks memory. The other develops thinking.
For older kids, ask what do you think about this topic? That forces them to have an opinion. And opinion is a higher-level thinking skill.
Followers wait for answers. Leaders ask better questions. And great education is less about you, mom, giving answers — it's about teaching children to investigate. It's about asking questions and letting them discover answers. Instead of saying here's what to believe or here's what to know, teach them to ask — is that true? How do we know? What's the evidence? Does this line up with Scripture? What are the consequences?
Charlotte Mason understood this over a hundred years ago. She believed education is the science of relations — that children connect ideas, not just memorize facts. She encouraged narration, living books, nature study, and discussion because those require children to think instead of repeat information.
Louis Braille Changed the World by Refusing to Accept the Problem
Louis Braille lost eyesight in one eye at age three, and by the time he was five, an infection took his sight in both eyes. But instead of giving up, he kept learning. Schools for the blind had almost no useful books. And so he thought — there has to be a better way.
His curiosity changed education around the world. At age 15, he invented the Braille reading system, which has impacted millions — possibly billions — of blind readers around the world.
His education wasn't just about covering subjects. It was about persistence, creativity, and solving real problems. Followers in life accept problems. Leaders solve them.
The Power of Discussion
One reason homeschooling is so powerful is that you can have real conversations with your children. Discussions develop thinking in ways that lectures, worksheets, and fill-in-the-blank assignments simply cannot.
Try asking — why do you think the character acted the way they did? What would you have done? Was it wise? Is this what God would want? Those open-ended questions build discernment, communication skills, and confidence — all part of leadership education.
Katherine Johnson was a NASA mathematician featured in the movie Hidden Figures. She was known for asking serious, careful questions and checking her calculations before accepting anything. Even after computers arrived, astronauts trusted her mathematical reasoning. John Glenn specifically requested that Katherine run the same numbers by hand — and said if she says they're good to go, I'm ready to go.
Leadership often begins by asking better questions. That's exactly what Katherine Johnson did.
What to Do This Week
When your child asks a question this week — don't answer it. Ask them instead — what do you think? How could we find out? You might be amazed at what happens when your children have permission from you to wrestle with ideas.
Replace one answer this week with a question. Just watch what happens.
The goal isn't smarter kids. It's wiser leaders. Twenty years from now, would you rather your child know every state capital — or know how to make wise decisions?
Knowledge matters. But wisdom matters more. In Proverbs it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That is the direction we need to go if we're raising godly Christian leaders — not simply educated children, but leaders who love God, think biblically, and influence the world around them.
Every discussion, every read aloud, every family conversation, every dinner table question can become leadership training.
Leadership education is at the heart of my Raising Leaders, Not Followers course. Right now there's an early access VIP list open. Join it and you'll be invited to my private VIP chat, get early access to Raising Leaders, and receive $150 in early bird bonuses.