F is getting closer to “school” age every year and I have been spending a lot of time thinking about his future as well as M’s. What does it really mean to educate a child and to make them ready for the world. Ready for the future. But how could one possible know what to teach a child if one has no idea of what the future holds.
Our society and our technology are adapting and changing faster than ever and that is creating more questions than ever about the future. AI and machine learning are quickly on track to make the world a significantly different place from when I was a child. Will my children even need to know how to drive a car or will they simply rent a self driving model for a day? I am personally excited by the changes coming. I believe that it will give us more freedom than ever and create a time of significantly reduced waste. Most cars spend 90% of their time parked and many people are trapped doing boring jobs that provide no fulfillment in their lives. But how to best prepared for it whether or not it is positive.
Could a quickly changing technologically advanced society overwhelm even the best efforts of good parents and schools? The answer is, of coarse, yes but only if we do not see it coming or refuse to acknowledge it’s approach.
So what is one to do? How am I to give my children the best preparation for what I cannot predict is coming?
When thinking on the future and how to best prepared my children for it I reflect on my own education.
I was brought up in the public school system of Seattle. It was a fine up bringing but I must say that I did little to prepare me for life. Reading writing and arithmetic are all fine and useful but many topics I was forced to memorize and repeat have long ago fled my memory. The most important part of my education had nothing to do with school. I learned my work ethic from my parents who both held highly demanding jobs. They spent their weekends constantly busy working on this or that project around the house. I learned how to teach myself from music lessons where I learned the value of repetition and how I learn best. I learned how to work with others on the job by taking feed back from peers and my betters in an effort better myself and achieve more. I learned far more from podcasts, youtube videos and blog articles when the knowledge I sought was related to something that would better my life or provide joy.
What I have always relied on and I believe I will continue to rely upon are life skills that can be taught but only if one is aware that they are priorities. The love of learning, social awareness, work ethic, critical thinking and drive. With these five things there really isn’t much of anything you cannot achieve. As I have grown in my leadership role at work and developed as a person these are the five things I have leaned on the most. Everything else is secondary or just fluff. History can be found when it interests you. Literature read when you are ready. Calculations accomplished with the super computer in your pocket. But these five must be tackled from a young age.
Now there will be some basics that I want my children to understand about the way the world works. These things they can find for themselves but only if they understand where to look. For example; what money is and how it is created, how to produce or forage your own food, how to care for yourself and the ones that you love or the power and importance of family. These things among others will give them a better start to life and a head start above most others. That said they can all me learned later in life once one understands and fluent in the top five.
These top five will be some of the most critical items to their development into socially expectable adults and no you cannot learn them in school. They will also prepare one for most possible situations in life.
Now the work begins of how to intentionally teach and coach our children in them.