“Every year, I stand on stage accepting donations from our ‘C’ students so that the ‘A’ students can do their research…”
– How to Sabotage your Child’s Future
Crystal Lim Lange, co-author of Deep Human and CEO of Forest Wolf, a future readiness consultancy, has written a commentary on what we are doing wrong as educators and parents:How to Sabotage your Child’s Future
Her advice/Key takeaways in condensed form:
1. Do not turn students away from humanities (History, Literature, Geography) because even technology companies are hiring Arts students for the diversity of thought they bring to the table.
2. The most valuable skills of the future are soft skills such as empathy, creativity and self-awareness.
3. Established companies like Google and Apple are no longer requiring a degree from job applicants.
4. Employers want to know what life skills and competencies you have acquired and how your unique experience makes you an effective team player.
5. A polytechnic education may be more useful than the Integrated Programme because polytechnics have practical courses, relevant to industry needs.
6. Employers view polytechnic students as more entrepreneurial and resilient.
7. Polytechnics through their project-based pedagogy impart crucial skills like negotiating, influencing and communicating early in a student’s life.
8. Do not choose a job based on a starting salary, because the experience the job offers will be more valuable in the long run.
9. “Most successful” individuals “heralded as role models” prefer to start companies by evaluating risks and opportunities rather than work for a stable wage.
10. In the age of disruption, we need entrepreneurial mindsets, skill focused (instead of purely theory based) education and less focus on grades.
11. In the world of the future, everyone needs to be able to market themselves and understand how networks can be powerful.
12. Students should begin experimenting with projects of their interest and test their marketability.
13. We should not compare children because this damages children’s self-esteem even if they are doing better than their peers presently. What happens when they slip?
14. Extrinsic motivation (such as approval of others) is ineffective and demotivating.
15. Educators and parents need to impress upon children that we are fallible, that no one is perfect, that setbacks are to be expected. We should allow children to fail and recover on their own.
16. Educators and parents can share stories of small challenges they face and talk about how they are working to overcome these problems.
17. It is alright to argue in front of kids because it teaches them how to have a respectful difference of opinion.
18. We should let our children see us apologising for mistakes so they know it is acceptable to make mistakes and take responsibility for them.
19. Teach children that the world is a messy and unpredictable place.
20. Help children see that success comes because of our response to mistakes and not despite mistakes.
To be clear, I am of the view that students should pursue excellence in every endeavour including their studies. What I understand Ms Lim to be saying is we are not to pursue an ‘A’ grade at the expense of soft skills and opportunities to experiment and improvise with each failure.
‘C’ graders start companies and succeed because they had time to experiment while their grade-oriented peers spent all their time chasing ‘A’s. This means, grades are not predictors of success whatever that means to you. This does not mean we should neglect studies. If we can get ‘A’s (this means we have mastered subject content and acquired valuable dispositions such as a disciplined mindset in the process) and pursue interests, that will be ideal.
Actually, if we don’t spend our waking hours making developers of computer games rich, it is not difficult to juggle studies and experiment with different interests.
What is dangerous, is the notion that all we need are ‘A’ grades to make it in the world. ‘A’ grades without 21st century competencies are not worth very much. It bears mentioning the following. We hear often of how billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Larry Page dropped out of college. Some of us may take this to mean, school is not important. This in my view, is a dangerous and erroneous conclusion. Ask yourself this. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg would have scored anything other than an ‘A’ in every subject if he did not drop out?
These men succeeded because they were already competent in what school was offering and not because what school offered was not important to their success. Pursue competence to obtain success. Those who are competent achieve market success even without a university’s mark of approval.
Musashi, the legendary and undefeated swordsman of 16th century Japan, was not a graduate of any of the most reputable martial arts schools at the time.
The Brain Dojo
