All over the world, kids are told to stay in schools and achieve good grades. We ourselves have got into a habit of believing that young minds require good attendance and marks on their tests to have a bright future. Yet, are schools the best preparation for children to succeed in life?
One of the first places where schools fail us is by teaching us knowledge and not wisdom. Instead of critical life skills such as managing money, negotiating and communicating, schools are teaching children to memorise. Though the knowledge is useful, they fail to teach the children critical life skills. The pressure then falls on the parents who themselves might not be qualified to teach them.
Schools need to incorporate life lessons into their curriculum where classes like mathematics teach topics such as credit card interest rates and proper financial management. Such lessons are required to be taught even before higher education starts.
School's learning environment is another key issue in this topic. The environment of a school is not what is faced in the real world. Lessons taken from the age of apprenticeship taught us about hands-on skills and expertise and mentorship from a mentor. Such examples can only be seen now in programmes such as programming bootcamps where an intense environment and proper mentorship prepares candidates for the workforce.
Our perception of getting good grades in school is another factor that does not prepare us for life. Doesn't matter how many straight As we get in school, unfortunately we cannot do the same in the real world. In the real world, we are faced with many rejections before our first success. This scenario is almost never seen in school as we even get an A for effort. We also get gratification for every small achievement in school, whereas in life it is seldom.
The true apprenticeship of young minds not only starts from our schools but also from our families. Like many things, life lessons are not simply a lesson learned in school but are taught through meaningful experiences. In the same time, we may want to reflect on the methodology of teachings in school as it has barely evolved to meet the standards of the modern age.
The author is the founder of Casper Foundation.
He can be reached at [email protected]
