The biggest challenge to audience student engagement is that we have an impoverished narrative for human development.
Every human being alive today, be they a world leader or a knife toting gang member, is working on the same two mandatory assignments – surviving and communicating with others. Free will does not mean we choose the assignments. It merely means we choose how much pain we suffer in the learning process.
The skills we use to succeed in these assignments are most commonly called Life Skills.
Tragically, the Life Skills educational process more closely resembles genetic inheritance than academics. If your father has red hair, you have red hair. If your father screams and yells you scream and yell. Children learn what they live, as the famous poem is titled.
Why? Why do we accept that children can learn to read and write from third party educators, but not conflict resolution and interpersonal communication skills? How might the world change if we embraced a more optimistic and dynamic narrative?
Take any societal ill (diabetes type II epidemics, financial collapse, wars) and you will find their origins in an inferior educational process.
Two years ago I founded the (now top ranked) Parenting 2.0 group on LinkedIn. Our mission is for children’s Life Skills Average (LSA) to one day be as appreciated as their Grade Point Average (GPA). Specifically we advocate:
- Greater appreciation of the mandatory curriculum.
- Benefits of embracing a more dynamic and proactive Life Skills’ educational process.
- Greater collaboration among educators.
