Educators should also make a student want to learn, and want to continue learning, even after formal schooling is finished. By Bateson's standards, my piano teacher had failed miserably. In fact, by her standards, most schools in the United States fail with regards to lifelong learning. For me, the major shortcoming of my piano instruction was the inherent lack of joy in the process of learning. I remember the drudgery of practice time, and how each lesson stretched interminably.

This was the major reason that I did not want to even look at the piano when school started.

If my child was going into piano lessons, I would begin with the music itself. We would listen to CDs or go to concerts to watch performances. I would strive to identify music that interests her. She would learn to play the standard pieces,...

Children should know that learning is not competitive, that the fact that someone can play better does not diminish your capacity for lifelong learning. In my case, the recital was seen as a "graduation" of sorts, a milestone that meant that I did not have to play the piano anymore. The concept of lifelong learning was lost.
Bateson is right in pointing out how current educational institutions have undermined our capacity to learn for the pleasure of learning. Her techniques should therefore find wider application, if we are to create a population with a continued capacity to learn.