By Martie du Plessis

For many years now I have been giving advise to parent in terms of  educating their children for real life and specifically the 21st century. I believe the best true training for this happens in the family.

Authentic education is something that is real. True, Reliable, Dependable, Faithful, Trustworthy, Accurate, Genuine, Realistic, Real, Valid and Original. The opposite is false.

Within any given time of education we are suppose to prepare the learner for real life in which they are going to operate. A decade or so ago the educational system prepared people to be reliable people, hard workers with secure outcomes, with maybe one good skill. Individuals did not have to have a high level of efficiency as there would always be a manager to check on them.

Now that we are educating for the knowledge age, nothing is static and individuals must have a high level of efficiency with a new mix of skills.  Speed is  needed to change fast as technology is fast and complexity  in communication  is required. The  uncertainty is a factor that educators must keep in mind.   (www.21stcenturyskills.org)  We basically need to train our children for chaos!

‘We are currently preparing students for jobs that doesn’t exist…using technologies that haven’t yet been invented … in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” Richard Riley, Secretary of Education under Clinton

 21st century skills require people to read, write and do maths much faster and more efficient  (3 Rs’s skills of 21st century:

Reading, ‘Riting  (writing),‘Rithmetic  (Arithmetic)(Maths)

7 C’s skills of 21st century education are 

• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Creativity and innovation
• Collaboration and teamwork; leadership from youngand responsibility, accountability and ownership.
• Cross-cultural skills and social understanding
• Communication, Information, and media literacy
• Computing and ICT literacy
• Career and learning self-reliance, self-direction

I have been advocating that parents should make sure their children  are self workers(independent workers) by the age of 14.  That they should be educated in accountability and ownership from a young age. When we do that, we are shaping the tool (child) for any situation in any era they will be working in, and  they will also have the character, apart from various skills.

How do we do it? 

“Creativity and innovation can be nurtured by learning  environments that foster questioning, patience, openness to fresh ideas, high levels of trust, and learning from mistakes and failures.

This can be developed, like many others skills, through practice over and over. “

There is no better place than the family for this to take place. The parents can do this in a very simple way by embracing the hand, head and heart principle.  This is a way to develop the whole person.  This is a very interesting concept that I happened to discover in one of Dr Raymond Moores books.  This Lues family has also implemented this in their home education with their children.  The basic principle is that you dedicate a balance of time to each area:

Head = Academic

Hand = work for money

Heart = Service – no money

The tendency is always to focus on the academic or Head  side of homeschooling, the when and how of it all.  In this knowledge era “Learning  is becoming an anytime, anyplace activity, woven into all the parts of everyday life centers in communities” so even academic learning is not stagnant and bound to a schoolroom. It happens all the time.  Academic work is balanced by the same amount of work with the child’s hands and in the child’s heart.

Hand means that children work constructively and creatively, but with increased responsibility as they mature.  Even if they are only six you make them the officer of their family “corporation.”   It’s finding the right home industry for them to do, taking into account their  passion.

Heart means that each child has a chore.  Most families have it in different categories, like morning chores and the rest of the day chores.   Families designate chores to each family member and then an older child assisting the younger one in their chores.  Mom and the older ones prepare a  good breakfast every morning after each child has done their tidying up chores.  After breakfast they clean the kitchen, another child cleans the fireplace,  emptying the dustbin and helping with the little ones.

Later on in the day it is setting the table again, closing the curtains, putting the toys away, preparing the main meal, reading to little ones and washing up after the meal.  

Children do not get paid for these chores.  It is important for a child to master a skill before moving into the next.   It also stops them from bickering about who’s job is it when they know that they will move on only when they have good character (heart) about the matter and the skill is mastered.

The fact that children work by doing household chores cause them to perceive themselves as needed and valuable within their family and develop healthy self-esteem.  They see that they can work as a team.   One might think that it negates the authority of the parent in the family hierarchy but children actually see themselves falling into a valuable and appreciated place in the family machine.

 “Revolution does not  happen when society adopts new technology, it happens when society adopts new behaviour”