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We live in a hyper competitive world. People all over the globe are working very hard to increase
their standard of living and improve their quality of life. Technological improvements and global implementation
of the latest communications systems and information technologies, when combined with today's super efficient logistics
and transportation capabilities, allows for groups of people all over the world to compete in the worldwide market
for a wide range of products and services. Effectively, we now have a global labor market.
Each of us is
born with certain capabilities and attributes that give us advantages and disadvantages in competing with others. A
few of us are born with a combination of natural talents that allow us to cruise through life. A very
high percentage of us have the capability to learn specific skills and develop our intellectual capability and apply that
intellect in some aspect of the market. The vast majority must educate themselves and learn basic life skills and then
more advanced skills needed to compete and win in the market and to achieve the standard of living that
satisfies their individual desires.
My wife and I have raised three children with very different levels of academic
skills and interests. My wife has spent 20 years working as a volunteer in Girl Scouts and the public school system
helping children learn life skills and develop themselves intellectually. My sister is a master teacher that has more
then 20 years of elementary school classroom experience and is now a reading specialist. She has taught in elementary
schools in tough neighborhoods.
Every day we hear people from every spectrum of society cry out that
we need to improve the US educational system. We are falling behind the rest of the world. The schools are broken.
We need to spend more money on education. Our children can't pass basic skill and knowledge tests. The schools
need to do more for our children. The schools must implement the No Child Left Behind program.
I
cringe every time I hear these things because I believe that they completely miss the point. The first teachers of every
child are the parents of the children. It is parents that are fundamentally responsible for the education of our children.
Parents begin to educate our children in the first year of their life. We are the ones that must begin reading basic
books to our children and go through the process of reading to, reading with and finally listening to our children read their
books to us. When a child can read a basic book to a parent you know that child is now prepared begin the process
of life long learning and independent thinking. Parents must instill a respect for education and a desire to learn in
their children at a young age. If parents do not go through this process with their children they put their children
at a high risk of failure. When children show up in kindergarten or first grade and have no reading skills and quickly
fall behind their peers, it is not the teachers that have failed. It is the parents that have failed to properly prepare
their children to learn.
The problems that exist in the educational system today are primarily created by parents
that have not taken responsibility for preparing their children to be educated. Our first efforts in improving our educational
system should be improvements in parenting skills for those that may not understand the critical nature of learning in
the early years before formal schooling starts. We need to work hard to make parents of children that are behind
in school aware that they must change their behavior if their child is going to be saved from an educational
perspective. This is not a necessarily an ethnic, class or geographic issue. Parents from all segments of society
that have the right basic approach to early education can create terrific children that are great learners and acheivers and
the reverse is also true.
Parents must also explain to their children that they are going to have to work hard
if they are going to compete and win in the marketplace of tomorrow. We must instill a strong work ethic in our children
from the very beginning. The world will get more competitive in the future. If our children want a better life
or more affluent lifestyle than their parents they are going to have work very hard to achieve it. If they don't
work hard others around the world will.
Not every person is suited to book learning or academic pursuits. The
world economy has a huge need for people that have skills that don't directly relate to the standard educational
track. We need to fully understand our children's interests and capabilities and encourage those that have non-academic
interests to pursue those interests and to make themselves valuable in the marketplace. We need to make sure
that every child that has the ability to become skilled at something obtains those skills so that can be as productive
as possible as adults.
As parents it is our duty to prepare our children to be productive adults. We
need to work together to make sure that all children get the most out of the educational process and get the positive
reinforcement they need to maximize their learning and development of their skills.
Copyright
2006 by TPM
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