#0018: What did you do with yourschool degree

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Hey 👋  - Hello, there!! Hope you had a great week. 

How much schools contribute in real life is a point to be argued. There are many opinions about this issue. Some people think that school grades are a good predictor of future success, while others believe that they are not.

There is no doubt that getting good grades in school can open up opportunities in life. For example, if you want to go to a good university, you will need to have good grades.

However, there are also people who believe that school grades are not a good predictor of future success. They argue that many successful people have not done well in school. For example, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is a college dropout. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, also dropped out of college.

Success in real life is experience-dependent. It is not based on what you learn in school. Your ability to get a job, keep a job, and succeed in a job is entirely based on your experience. And while schools may give you some exposure to the work world, it is nothing compared to working full-time.

While the school has fixed working hours, the real working world does not. You will have to be flexible with your time, and sometimes you will have to work late nights and weekends. The school also doesn't do a very good job of replicating the fast pace of the real working world. In school, you usually have a couple of months to complete a project. In the working world, you might have a couple of days.

In school, your classmates are usually around the same age as you and at the same stage in their lives. In the working world, you will be working with people of all ages and from all walks of life.

In school, your work is usually very structured and you are given clear instructions on what to do. In the working world, the work is often less structured and you will have to figure out a lot of things for yourself.

The school's only way to help students develop their brains is to introduce them to more content

According to Steve Hughes, the brain develops in the environment where it is

1. Motivated - You need to want to do something for your brain to learn it.

2. Engaged - If your brain isn't engaged in what you're trying to learn, it won't learn it.

3. Repeated - For something to become automatic, you need to do it over and over again. The takeaway is that school often doesn't provide an environment that is conducive to learning. to working full-time. Children need to

4. Trial and Error- life is full of trial and error, we make mistakes and learn from them. Children need opportunities to try and experiment

5. Experimental - Be open to new experiences and try new things, it's not worth giving the kids the entire solution.

Interactions- we learn best from our interactions with other people and the world around us. Children need space to interact in the environment.

Steve Hughes in his talk says that most of the school's way to help kids is by increasing assessments in schools or increasing the content they need to know. The problem with this approach is that it doesn't help kids learn or develop their brain power. It often has the opposite effect.

If you want to read the full article on this topic, find the link at the end

This month we took the opportunity to learn about the 9/11.

Here are some tips for discussing 9/11 with kids:

- Find out what they already know. Ask them what they've heard about 9/11 and what they think happened.

- Keep your explanation simple. Use age-appropriate language to explain what happened.

- Answer their questions honestly. They may have lots of questions about why this happened and who did it. Try to answer them as best you can.

- Help them express their feelings. It's normal for kids to feel scared or sad when talking about 9/11. Let them know it's OK to feel this way and offer comfort and support.

- Reassure them that they're safe. Kids may worry that something like this could happen again. Tell them that people are working hard to keep us all safe.

• Explain what's being done to remember the victims. Help them understand why it's important to remember those who lost their lives on 9/11.

Connecting with kids over homework/assignments

In Indian families, the pressure of completing the homework is so much on the kids that the parents lose their calm and end up being frustrated when children do not comply. Many Indian children are beaten up and yelled at if they show any resistance to finishing their homework. Many children learn to treat their homework as a chore and they find different ways to finish their work but they are not involved in it.

Sometimes parents can get overly involved and start micromanaging the tasks and almost end up doing the task assigned to their children themselves, which is not going to help the kids anyways.

Forcing kids can not help either, instead planning can help establish a routine.

Parents can help in finding a good spot for doing the assignments at home with good lighting and less disturbance.

Some conversation around what happened in the classroom can be a good way to loop in the kids, COVID has got parents involved in the school and the assignments in a big way.

cheers, Priyanka