Magic Wand- Teach the Children of the world one thing
1653 sats \ 19 comments \ @grayruby 26 Mar meta
As many of you know my wife and I homeschool our kids.
My daughter is only 5, so she just started officially homeschooling a year and a half ago, although we started her with some preschool lessons as early as 2. But my son is 13 (turning 14 in a few months) so I like to think by now we are homeschool veterans and have a pretty good idea what we are doing (hopefully).
One of the things I like about homeschooling is while you do follow a curriculum that is similar to what is taught in public school (the usual subjects- math, reading/writing/ geography, history, science etc) you also have a lot of flexibility in additional things you can teach them (or hire others to teach them). This opportunity to teach other things not taught in school is not limited to homeschooling, but it does make it easier to integrate them into their daily learning.
So my question to my fellow stackers is, if you had a magic wand and could use it to teach all the children of the world one thing what would it be? (Leaving this very open ended. Could be anything. A subject, a skill, a framework for life).
Looking forward to hearing your responses.
write
preview
related posts
241 sats \ 2 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 26 Mar
Lessons you wished you were taught.
Finance as an example.
Words of wisdom such as (especially for your son headed into the age in which people are going to ask him what he wants to do with his life). 22ish is when they say your brain has matured and finished growing. 22. It's ok to not have your life figured out at 15-16-17-18. You can make mistakes and try different things. The last bit of the brain to develop? The prefrontal cortex, the bit responsible for planning, prioritising and decision making... You'll be alright kid.
Teach them to cook, and to experiment with flavours.
Above all teach them unsatisfiable, insatiable curiosity, so that they always want to learn something new.
reply
61 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 26 Mar
All great stuff but you only have one sweep of your magic wand, which of these would you want to be the things all kids learned. Curiosity?
reply
71 sats \ 0 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 26 Mar
Nah, I think kids are naturally curious and it's society that beats it out of them. I think kids need to learn to stay curious in a world that wants you to not ask why and just be obedient.
So yeah, how to stay curious.
reply
70 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 26 Mar
They should definitely teach about money, economics, and politics. This would help them understand how the world works and how it will affect them as adults. It would be a huge advantage for the entire planet if they could learn what took us years to figure out.
reply
64 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 26 Mar
Definitely money is important. Would be less important under a bitcoin standard though because you could just work and save.
reply
72 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 26 Mar
I would want to teach a willingness to try and fail and try again.
It's early days for us, but so far our daughter has a great attitude about failure. She just loudly exclaims "Oh no! Try again."
There's something of a fine line to walk, because you want people to care about failing, but you don't want it to stop them from trying in the first place.
reply
21 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 26 Mar
That's a good one.
reply
50 sats \ 0 replies \ @DudeJLebowski 27 Mar
Financial literacy.
Easily the most important thing missing from most children's education.
reply
50 sats \ 1 reply \ @DesertDave 27 Mar
To be brave and dream big.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 27 Mar
Love it
reply
50 sats \ 1 reply \ @saunter 26 Mar
Deep work and how to focus.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 26 Mar
Focus is definitely a good one. Especially this day and age when we are inundated with things trying to grab our attention.
reply
50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Voldemort 26 Mar
How to think and learn. How to identify meaningful questions and how to research those questions.
All of the things people wish school taught them but didn't, such as HoW tO Do TaXEs, are trivial if you know how to think and learn.
The rate at which we receive information and disinformation is ever increasing. Sometimes asking a simple question is enough to ignore something. If a simple question won't do, research is the next option.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 26 Mar
I think how to approach learning is a good one. It's kind of the same ideas as if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, if you teach him to fish he eats for a lifetime. If kids were all given the ability to be excellent learners they could learn anything.
reply
50 sats \ 1 reply \ @kytt 26 Mar
Soft skill: Understanding that nothing will come easy immediately and the importance of pushing through the challenges of an unfamiliar topic.
Hard skill: Wilderness survival.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 26 Mar
I was hoping someone would suggest survival skills.
reply
20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 12 Jun
If I had the chance to do this, I would teach them all the books that the school overlooks. Like discipline and philosophy. These things are important but not well taught in school.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @UCantDoThatDotNet 27 Mar
The Cathedral and the Bazaar The Cypherpunk Manifesto The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto
Is that one thing?
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @halalmoney 27 Mar
The ability to assess, for every significant interaction, with a person or on organisation:
the relative balance of power
how each party benefits (or otherwise) from the interaction
reply