Are you worried about how to prepare your kids for the future?
I am.
What skills will they need to be successful? What should we cover to help them the most? Are the standards the government has for education taking any of this into consideration?
Lots to think about.
I had a coaching session with a high school student that really doesn’t want to be in school any longer. I’ve been trying to engage him with different ways education can help him. This week we read an article on the skills that companies are looking for today. I found it interesting that they broke the skills into two different groups: hard skills and soft skills.
It made me think of education.
School tends to really focus on the hard skills. The system needs quantifiable data. Kids are constantly being tested and graded and evaluated.
But is that what they need?
The majority of hard skills listed in the article we read were computer-related. Computer Skills, Programming, SEO Optimization, Machine Operation, Typing.
These will probably still be needed in the future but the future is changing so fast! I think about when I was in college decades ago. I hired someone to type my undergraduate thesis (I couldn’t type very fast or very well) and just a few years later was writing my master’s thesis on a computer.
My schooling didn’t prepare me for that.
Today things seem to be moving even faster.
It is the soft skills that will save our kids.
Soft skills are harder to put a number on so traditional schooling doesn’t emphasize it as much. There isn’t a standardized test that can measure it.
Things like curiosity, creativity, endurance, being action-oriented, originality, optimism, time management, generosity, teamwork, and having leadership skills, and more. These are the skills they need.
With these skills, our kids can be in any situation and succeed.
I credit my parents for teaching me the most important thing I needed to know.
Passion.
They didn’t homeschool me but they fueled my genius. They encouraged me to build on my talents and share them. That is what kept me going, even when it got tough.
As a homeschool educator, I try to go one step further for my students.
We have the opportunity to totally individualize our kids’ education. They can learn every day to love learning. They don’t have to be bogged down by the “hoops” that traditional education often requires students to jump through.
When they are young it is pretty easy to do. Learning is all around them. Introducing them to new things and ideas and following their interests will keep you busy.
It is our teens that need a little more planning.
I’ve put together a program for teens and their parents.
It is very straightforward and doesn’t take much time. The teens need to do a few things and these are submitted to me. I go over them before we meet online for a 45-minute coaching call to discuss it and form a game plan for the future.
The Genius Game Plan is meant to give teens and their parents a vision for the future.
For more information and to sign up email me at info@realizinggenius.com.