Gaonomics

My daughter still love going to school at Tenby International School. Today she came back and said, you know mommy, what I love about Tenby is all the fun activities we do, like today we had to write a script to be performed tomorrow in school. I love that, she said, to be able to perform, it is so much fun. 

I am so pleased to hear how happy she is in school and how much she loves coming to school every day in spite of having to get up at 5.45 am each morning and only coming back home at 4 pm. She hardly has any homework to do, as usually she manages to finish the class work in school, although she does have project work to complete and pass up on a regular basis. But she likes doing the project work, as she gets to do research, write and be creative in designing the booklet or poster, or whatever she needs to do. But it’s not that she has project work every week, so she still has plenty of time to do the fun things she enjoys doing at home like playing guitar, singing, doing gymnastics, baking and doing other creative activities. This is exactly the kind of life I want for her, to be able to enjoy her childhood and be a child for as long as possible without worrying about the future, as having to work hard will come naturally, when she pursues her chosen career path as an adult and needs to be skillful, knowledgeable and professional in order to make a living.

I truly believe that children who are given time each day to do other things than homework, like fun and creative activities that they enjoy, will develop other important skills necessary to cope with the challenges they face in future. With the availability of the Internet around the clock, in my opinion there is no longer much need to learn facts or memorise information, as if we do need specific facts, we can just Google it and get the information within seconds, so why waste children’s energy in memorising dates and other facts, just to be able to pass a test or exam? I don’t deny the importance of learning numeracy, reading and writing, but in my opinion a lot more focus should be on teaching children how to do research, how and where to find the right information and to teach them to know the difference between facts and fiction. To teach them how to ask the right questions to be able to identify incorrect information or data that doesn’t make sense. And much more efforts in general should be put on developing children’s creative skills and critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Today’s children should learn how to look for solutions to problems and challenges, to never give up looking for answers and to be pro-active and to be able to work independently and as part of a group. They should learn how to perform, to present themselves in front of an audience and do oral presentations to increase their confidence and language skills as well as learn to speak up, to express their opinions, to learn how to deal with conflicts with their friends and to communicate assertively to get their ideas and feeling across.

I could go on and on, but I will save it for another posting, but let me just say that these are the attributes that our children need to be successful in future and I am so happy that Tenby International School is on the right track judging from the many activities they ask the children to do regularly with attention to the above. But the school can’t do it alone and we parents need to do our part too, which may be challenging for us, but worth the efforts to ensure a future generation of people, who are capable of solving many of the world’s problems without the use of force, conflicts and manipulation etc. The world really needs people who have the mind-set of wanting to create win win solutions for all, not just themselves, but to care for humanity, the animals, nature and environment and have compassion and ideas to solve problems and do what they can to avoid wars and conflicts, animal extinction and deforestation etc, but instead use their knowledge to educate more people, bring awareness and save our beautiful Earth. That would be truly wonderful!