Kids in today’s school system are not being prepared well for tomorrow’s world.
As someone who went from the corporate world and then the government
world to the ever-changing online world, I know how the world of
yesterday is rapidly becoming irrelevant. I was trained in the newspaper
industry, where we all believed we would be relevant forever — and I
now believe will go the way of the horse and buggy.
Unfortunately, I was educated in a school system that believed the
world in which it existed would remain essentially the same, with minor
changes in fashion. We were trained with a skill set that was based on
what jobs were most in demand in the 1980s, not what might happen in the
2000s.
And that kinda makes sense, given that no one could really know what
life would be like 20 years from now. Imagine the 1980s, when personal
computers were still fairly young, when faxes were the cutting-edge
communication technology, when the Internet as we now know it was only
the dream of sci-fi writers like William Gibson.
We had no idea what the world had in store for us.
And here’s the thing: we still don’t. We never do. We have never been
good at predicting the future, and so raising and educating our kids as
if we have any idea what the future will hold is not the smartest
notion.
How then to prepare our kids for a world that is unpredictable,
unknown? By teaching them to adapt, to deal with change, to be prepared
for anything by not preparing them for anything specific.
This requires an entirely different approach to child-rearing and
education. It means leaving our old ideas at the door, and reinventing
everything.
My drop-dead gorgeous wife Eva (yes, I’m a very lucky man) and I are
among those already doing this. We homeschool our kids — more
accurately, we
unschool them. We are teaching them to learn on their own, without us handing knowledge down to them and testing them on that knowledge.
It is, admittedly, a wild frontier, and most of us who are
experimenting with unschooling will admit that we don’t have all the
answers, that there is no set of “best practices”. But we also know that
we are learning along with our kids, and that not knowing can be a good
thing — an opportunity to find out, without relying on established
methods that might not be optimal.
I won’t go too far into methods here, as I find them to be less
important than ideas. Once you have some interesting ideas to test, you
can figure out an unlimited amount of methods, and so my dictating
methods would be too restrictive.
Instead, let’s look at a good set of essential skills that I believe
children should learn, that will best prepare them for any world of the
future. I base these on what I have learned in three different
industries, especially the world of online entreprenurship, online
publishing, online living … and more importantly, what I have learned
about learning and working and living in a world that will never stop
changing.
1. Asking questions. What we want most for our kids,
as learners, is to be able to learn on their own. To teach themselves
anything. Because if they can, then we don’t need to teach them
everything — whatever they need to learn in the future, they can do on
their own. The first step in learning to teach yourself anything is
learning to
ask questions.
Luckily, kids do this naturally — our hope is to simply encourage it. A
great way to do this is by modeling it. When you and your child
encounter something new, ask questions, and explore the possible answers
with your child. When he does ask questions, reward the child instead
of punishing him (you might be surprised how many adults discourage
questioning).
2. Solving problems. If a child can solve problems,
she can do any job. A new job might be intimidating to any of us, but
really it’s just another problem to be solved. A new skill, a new
environment, a new need … they’re all simply problems to be solved.
Teach your child to solve problems by modeling simple problem solving,
then allowing her to do some very easy ones on her own. Don’t
immediately solve all your child’s problems — let her fiddle with them
and try various possible solutions, and reward such efforts. Eventually,
your child will develop confidence in her problem-solving abilities,
and then there is nothing she can’t do.
3. Tackling projects. As an online entrepreneur, I
know that my work is a series of projects, sometimes related, sometimes
small and sometimes large (which are usually a group of smaller
projects). I also know that there isn’t a project I can’t tackle,
because I’ve done so many of them. This post is a project. Writing a
book is a project. Selling the book is another project. Work on projects
with your kid, letting him see how it’s done by working with you, then
letting him do more and more by himself. As he gains confidence, let him
tackle more on his own. Soon, his learning will just be a series of
projects that he’s excited about.
4. Finding passion. What drives me is not goals, not
discipline, not external motivation, not reward … but passion. When I’m
so excited that I can’t stop thinking about something, I will
inevitably dive into it fully committed, and most times I’ll complete
the project and love doing it. Help your kid find things she’s
passionate about — it’s a matter of trying a bunch of things, finding
ones that excite her the most, helping her really enjoy them. Don’t
discourage any interest — encourage them. Don’t suck the fun out of them
either — make them rewarding.
5. Independence. Kids should be taught to
increasingly stand on their own. A little at a time, of course. Slowly
encourage them to do things on their own. Teach them how to do it, model
it, help them do it, help less, then let them make their own mistakes.
Give them confidence in themselves by letting them have a bunch of
successes, and letting them solve the failures. Once they learn to be
independent, they learn that they don’t need a teacher, a parent, or a
boss to tell them what to do. They can manage themselves, and be free,
and figure out the direction they need to take on their own.
6. Being happy on their own. Too many of us parents
coddle our kids, keeping them on a leash, making them rely on our
presence for happiness. When the kid grows up, he doesn’t know how to be
happy. He must immediately attach to a girlfriend or friends. Failing
that, they find happiness in other external things — shopping, food,
video games, the Internet. But if a child learns from an early age that
he can
be happy by himself,
playing and reading and imagining, he has one of the most valuable
skills there is. Allow your kids to be alone from an early age. Give
them privacy, have times (such as the evening) when parents and kids
have alone time.
7. Compassion. One of the most essential skills
ever. We need this to work well with others, to care for people other
than ourselves, to be happy by making others happy. Modeling compassion
is the key. Be compassionate to your child at all times, and to others.
Show them empathy by asking how they think others might feel, and
thinking aloud about how you think others might feel. Demonstrate at
every opportunity how to ease the suffering of others when you’re able,
how to make others happier with small kindnesses, how that can make you
happier in return.
8. Tolerance. Too often we grow up in an insulated
area, where people are mostly alike (at least in appearance), and when
we come into contact with people who are different, it can be
uncomfortable, shocking, fear-inducing. Expose your kids to people of
all kinds, from different races to different sexuality to different
mental conditions. Show them that not only is it OK to be different, but
that differences should be celebrated, and that variety is what makes
life so beautiful.
9. Dealing with change. I believe this will be one
of the most essential skills as our kids grow up, as the world is always
changing and being able to accept the change, to deal with the change,
to navigate the flow of change, will be a competitive advantage. This is
a skill I’m still learning myself, but I find that it helps me
tremendously, especially compared to those who resist and fear change,
who set goals and plans and try to rigidly adhere to them as I adapt to
the changing landscape. Rigidity is less helpful in a changing
environment than flexibility, fluidity, flow. Again, modeling this skill
for your child at every opportunity is important, and showing them that
changes are OK, that you can adapt, that you can embrace new
opportunities that weren’t there before, should be a priority. Life is
an adventure, and things will go wrong, turn out differently than you
expected, and break whatever plans you made — and that’s part of the
excitement of it all.
We can’t give our children a set of data to learn, a career to
prepare for, when we don’t know what the future will bring. But we can
prepare them to adapt to anything, to learn anything, to solve anything,
and in about 20 years, to thank us for it.
