Lions From Lambs

Children must be given a clear, challenging, and non-biased education if they are to have any hope of success. 

Education, like everything else in our country, has become infected with politics. Everywhere one turns, the chants can be heard screaming from the peanut gallery. 

Whether it is arguments over what classifies as science to what books should be banned, everyone has an opinion. Unfortunately those opinions drown out the only thing that really matters in education – the preparation of students to be competitive in an unpredictable world.

Education should never have become an opportunity to load political or social beliefs on a captive audience. And students are a truly captive audience. From their first day of Kindergarten, children trust us to provide them with the best education we can that will in turn allow them to grow up and be strong and capable in the world. They trust us because they have no choice.

It is an evolutionary duty for each generation to instill skills in the next that will prepare them to take the torch and run with it. In the western world, we are failing that duty.

Countries like China, Japan, and Singapore prioritize the education of their children, intertwining it into the everyday lives of families. Students’ education is paramount in those countries and every step is taken – especially in the primary years – to ensure that children have access to everything they need to be successful at school.

Raising a human being is a full-time undertaking, regardless of one’s personal circumstances. Although a child will typically spend seven and a half to nine hours a day at school, that time is not sufficient to instill all the characteristics and skills that are necessary for excellence. 

There must be synchronization between school and home. Families must be involved with their child’s studies, helping with homework, reviewing graded work, and discussing relevant topics at the dinner table. 

(Oh, you don’t gather as a family for dinner? Well, it’s time to start!) 

Consistent communication with a child’s teacher is also vital to success. The teacher spends the most time with the child during the day. A child whose teacher and family maintain healthy communication is well protected from the pitfalls that so many children encounter.

Teachers can spot behavior in a child that could be a precursor to harmful outcomes and can help a family head off those patterns before they go too far. Teachers can also spot challenges a child may be facing with regard to how their individual brain processes and stores information. Interventions in this area are key to the student achieving success in later scholastic years.

On a more straightforward note, teachers can guide parents as to how to best help their child study at home. Teachers want your child to succeed. Without having been one, it is understandably difficult to fully comprehend how attached (most) teachers become to their students. They really are invested in securing the best possible outcome for the children.

Our children are going to enter an unprecedented world full of technology-driven customer service and absolutely ruthless competition for resources. It will take every resource we have to prepare them for it. (If this sounds dystopian to you, you’re right!) We must see the situation as it is, and this is the reality of the situation. 

The future is coming, and other nations have gone all-in on preparing their children to compete and succeed in it. If we are to fulfill our natural evolutionary promise to our children, we had better step on the gas…and time’s almost up!