The Context of A Child's Education

I have a personal desire to see both children and adults gain a basic understanding of history, arts, and architecture. Perhaps the world will seem more valuable to them with such knowledge under their belts. In grade school, my brother was required to learn Latin. He subsequently learned German too. Just one generation ago, our education system was still ripe with context, ripe with an appreciation of culture, so that intuitively, a child understood the application of his technical skills. The beauty in teaching a child about life and culture in concert with technical skills is that such context lends purposefulness to everything he learns.

It does not seem to be that way anymore. Nationwide, our educational requirements have been reduced to rudimentary tasks. If you don't know why you are learning anything, it really won't matter much to you. That is a huge problem. For a child to cultivate vision for his own life is rarer in the absence of cultural context. I am a strong proponent for homeschooling for this reason. Good parents can do miles more providing their child's education today, than most any institution.

I have a BS in Civil Engineering and a Masters of Architecture. I spent four years at MIT in Cambridge to earn my M.Arch. When I was in school, I observed that the students who had architects in their family were more thorough in their design projects. This is a good example of context in education. In architecture, for example, apprenticing with someone like a grandfather early in the game, frees up your ability to be creative and execute your own designs. You learn technical skills with specific insight into how they are useful. It's exciting. The student goes into an institutional setting all the more ready.

But that isn't all there is to career readiness. Parents must get into the habit of steering their students to learn the business of their respective crafts, not just the craft itself. Believe me, it doesn't matter how much tuition you pay. Schools don't do this for you, despite being such an important aspect of education. Parents, make it a part of growing up. This is how leaders are made. We want our children to be ready to start their own companies. They should be ready to be the employer if they are so inclined--not only the employee.