When it comes to make a decision for your children’s future, it never happens to be easy. You want to choose right and make you but especially your children, happy. You want them to be at ease with what expects them. You want them to appreciate the choices you made for them. You want them to enjoy the life you are trying to build for them.
But how is this possible? How can we make sure that the decisions will meet their needs? We cannot have this certainty. No matter how well we know our babies, or how much they trust us, we will never be 100% sure that our choices will perfectly suit them.
And yet, is there anything we can do to have a chance of making good and reasonable decisions? Yes, of course.
A good starting point may be analysing our present-day society, and think about how it can evolve in the next future. What are the skills, abilities and knowledge needed to survive and to have great opportunities both in academic and working life? Here are some suggestions!
- . It’s the language of the present, and it’s likely to be also the language of the future. It is true that mobile apps and websites devoted to translation work very well and continuously improve, but they cannot enter our minds and convey the exact same message that we want to give. English knowledge is more and more required by employers and a high proficiency in English gives you more opportunities to enter international universities as well.
- The ability to give evidence to your arguments. When supporting a thesis, it’s important to enrich it with proofs and reasonings, providing motivation to the ideas. Having an opinion without any kind of evidence support, neither physical nor argumentative, will not improve your credibility and people will hardly trust your topics.
- Knowing your children, their interests, strengths and weaknesses. Not only knowing the qualities, but also the weak points may help building your children’s future. If you discover their interests, you’ll be able to nurture them, and to make their potential talents raise, evolve and shine.
- A well-rounded education and knowledge. Our current society requires us to be informed on a wide range of topics. To keep the pace and be up to date, we need first to know what happened before. Furthermore, it may be important to know how to speak in different kinds of situations and contexts and to have a good knowledge of the issues affecting our world. In order to achieve this, in addition to personal interests and researches, a good school education will definitely be a plus.
- The flexibility and ability to adapt to different situations. We live in a rapidly changing world where we may be subject to change several times in short-term periods. Being able to adapt and accept these changes is one of the first steps towards success. Moreover, our society is made of different-class and different-culture people, making understanding and international mindedness mandatory skills to achieve a peaceful and truly multicultural environment.
Can schools help you achieve these skills? They may, but it’s not always true.
We should find a school that gives enough space to English, and that can convey and help your children develop international mindedness. A school where debates are encouraged, where everyone has the opportunity to speak their voice, where confrontation is seen as an advantage, to understand how to interact and how to support arguments.
A school where classes are made of few students, in order for them to be better followed by teachers. A school where international people are not seen as a menace, but as an enrichment to our culture and society. A school where educational, inter-disciplinar, cross-cultural activities are organised.
A school that values your children, that sees them as growing people that will enrich our world and that will be the leaders of tomorrow. A school that provides a well-rounded education by virtue of its programmes. A school that cares.