I’ve never been a big fan of the idea of “the school system”, and that’s because the traditional definition I’m familiar with is much different than the traditional definition that the rest of the world uses. It’s one thing to be told that we need to learn. It’s another entirely to be told that we should learn.
I think learning is a good thing, but that it should be a good thing doesn’t make it a good thing. The problem comes in when we start to think that the school system is a way of teaching and that’s it. It’s a way of promoting children to think that learning is important. We then start to think that the school system is a way of teaching what we don’t want our kids to know.
For many decades our schools have taught us that the majority of our knowledge comes from books, that we need to read to understand the world, that we don’t need to study hard to be successful in life. The schools have been teaching that to our children for most of our lives. But while kids are taught to read and write well, they are also taught to think critically, to analyze information, to think about how they can make decisions.
So you got that right. And this is probably the best reason to teach your kids to think critically. But to be fair, I think most parents think of this as a bad thing. A lot of us have been taught that in order to be successful in life, we need to be smart, that we need to know how to study, and to be able to think well.
But this is a big mistake. As you are probably aware, the education system in the US is not the best. As a parent, I’m not sure that I want my kid to learn all of these skills. But I also don’t want him to forget about the fact that the education system is the largest employer in the US. It’s true that there are lots of people who are learning these skills every day.
The “best” education system is a big mistake. The kids who are the best at school are the ones who are most successful at doing the simplest things.
As someone who works in the education industry, I can assure you that there are many kids out there who do really well at school. However, there are also plenty of kids who are performing at a very high level, but who have yet to realize the potential in their talents. There are also kids who are highly successful in school, but who are still living the life they were supposed to live, and who are living in the shadows.
When I’m teaching, I try to find the balance between the two. We want to give the students the best preparation for life available, but we also want to be aware of the potential of each and every single one of them. Learning is a lifelong process, and it takes years of hard work that are sometimes not appreciated at all. It’s also great to see them work hard, but not push themselves beyond their limits.
Of course there has to be an appropriate balance between the two. Of course we want our students to be as prepared as we can make them, but we need to be aware that they may need extra help in some areas. We need to help them understand the importance of staying up to date with current events, of reading books, of getting their SATs, and of applying for scholarships.
This is something I have found to be quite common with my students. They need to take the same classes as their classmates, or at least have the same time in the same classes, but they will often need to take extra classes and/or extra tests in order to accomplish these goals.