Empty Cup

Apr 9
5 min read

by Nicole Johnston

The idea of the empty cup and its connection to the Semmelweis reﬂex came to me while reading a newsletter by Sahil Bloom. In it, he reﬂected on these principles as a way of understanding how individuals resist new ideas, even in the face of compelling evidence. I found myself returning to those ideas, not in the abstract, but in the very concrete world of schools and classrooms.

A professor once visited a Zen master seeking wisdom. As the master began to speak, the professor repeatedly interrupted, eager to demonstrate his own knowledge, to add, to reﬁne, to correct. Eventually, the master paused and suggested they have tea. He poured the professor a cup, ﬁlling it to the brim, and then kept pouring. Tea spilled over the sides, onto the table, and onto the professor himself.

“Stop,” the professor protested. “Can’t you see the cup is already full?”

“Precisely,” the master replied. “You are like this cup. So full of ideas that nothing more will ﬁt in. Come back to me with an empty cup.”

It is difficult not to see ourselves in that professor. It is even more difficult not to see our schools.

In education, we often speak the language of innovation, of reimagining curriculum, of preparing students for an unpredictable future, of fostering creativity and critical thinking. And yet, when confronted with ideas that challenge long-standing practices, we hesitate. We interrupt. We defend. We return, again and again, to what we know.

As chair of a history department, I can attest that in the case of history, the resistance is especially visible. We hold tightly to a traditional structure, allocating a set number of years to U.S. history and another to World history, typically taught in chronological order. Even when schools experiment with thematic approaches, they frequently maintain the same divisions, keeping U.S. and World history in separate spheres rather than rethinking the framework itself, suggesting that while our language has evolved, our structures largely have not.

This resistance is not unique to education. It reﬂects what is known as the Semmelweis reﬂex. The instinct to reject new evidence when it contradicts established beliefs. Named after a 19th-century physician who discovered that handwashing dramatically reduced maternal mortality, the concept captures a deeply human tendency. Despite clear evidence, Semmelweis’s ﬁndings were dismissed by the very doctors whose practices he sought to improve.

In schools, the stakes may look different, but the pattern is familiar. New approaches to teaching and learning, whether project-based learning, interdisciplinary curriculum, or competency-based assessment, are often met with skepticism, not necessarily because they lack merit, but because they disrupt what feels proven and safe. “This is not how we’ve done it,” becomes both explanation and defense.

Part of the challenge lies in the fact that the system, as it exists, has worked, at least for some. Many educators succeeded within traditional structures. Many parents built meaningful, successful lives shaped by that same system. Their experiences are not imagined; they are real and deeply felt. And so, when change is proposed, it can feel less like progress and more like a threat to something that once provided stability and opportunity.

The system’s greatest defense is its past success.

But that success was built for a different world. As Charles Fadel and others have argued, modern schooling was largely designed during the Industrial Revolution, a time that valued efficiency, standardization, and predictability. Schools were structured to produce workers who could follow directions, adhere to schedules, and ﬁt into clearly deﬁned roles.

Today’s world asks something different. It demands adaptability, creativity, collaboration, and the ability to navigate complexity and uncertainty. Yet too often, our structures remain anchored in an earlier era, measuring success through systems that prioritize coverage over curiosity, and compliance over critical thinking.

To acknowledge this is not to suggest that everything old should be discarded. Tradition carries wisdom. There is value in coherence, in shared knowledge, in practices that have endured for good reason.

The goal is not to empty the cup entirely, but to recognize when it is so full that nothing new can be considered.

But the call to empty the cup is not only for those who resist change. It is also for those who seek it most urgently. In the push to innovate, there can be a different kind of fullness, a conviction that anything associated with the past must be replaced, rather than reconsidered. Educators eager to move forward may, at times, overlook the value embedded in longstanding practices, dismissing them before fully understanding why they endured. An empty cup, in this sense, requires not just openness to the new but a willingness to listen carefully to the old. An ability to discern what is worth carrying forward, and what must be left behind.

The tension, then, is not between past and future, but between certainty and curiosity.

What would it look like for schools to approach change with humility? To listen more than they defend? To create space, not just for new ideas, but for the possibility that what once worked may no longer be enough? Returning to the earlier example of history education, today’s history graduate requires a different skill set: digital citizenship, media literacy, and civic engagement. This shift calls us to imagine courses organized thematically, blending U.S. and World history to reflect the interconnectedness students experience in their daily lives. In this context, the focus on facts becomes less central, which forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth.

How much of that content do most adults truly carry with them? If retention is so limited, we have to question what we are prioritizing and why. Yes, in today’s history classes, teachers bring in perspective, context, and various sourcing elements. Yet, the focus still remains on the delivery of content siloed by sections of the world. The question should become not what students can recall, but how they think, analyze, and engage as citizens. What matters more: covering a set endpoint each year in history class, or equipping students with the ability to make sense of histories they have never studied.

This is not only the work of educators. Parents, too, play a role in shaping what schools value and prioritize. Their expectations, often rooted in their own experiences, can reinforce the very structures that need reexamination. Change, in this sense, requires a collective willingness to question not just systems, but the stories we tell ourselves about what made us successful.

The Zen master’s lesson was not about abandoning knowledge, but about making room for learning. An empty cup is not a rejection of what it once held; it is an openness to what might come next.

Perhaps the future of education depends less on what we add, and more on what we are willing to let go.

Link to the newsletter that spurred this

Nicole Johnston is a veteran Upper School History Department Chair for the Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child in Summit, New Jersey, and a Civics and Politics Teacher with One Schoolhouse, based in Washington, D.C. She is an honoree of Women Who Rock by Hackensack Meridian Health, an ASCD Emerging Leader, a National Association of Independent Schools Teacher of the Future, and Teacher of the Year by the Knights of Columbus. You can contact her via email here.