While growing up, my father taught me that loyalty to a company was a key to success, he taught me this not only in words, but also by example. He worked for Boeing for 39 years. For the time and his career, his perception was appropriate (benefits, annual raises, retirement) However in this day, and in my career field(computers) this perception is not very appropriate. Financially I am more likely to see substantial pay increases by moving between companies, and retirement plans are more portable, not to mention the fact that relative stagnation can occur much more rapidly in the computer industry if one stays in a particular job too long.
What both my parents taught me that is very relevant to this day and age:
-question everything, especially authority.
This was probably the hardest on them
,being for so much of my life the primary
authority that regularly was questioned.
-Think for myself, and trust in myself.
-be willing to make mistakes, and learn from
them.
The skill of automechanics may not have been very useful, but the related skills (logical analysis for example) required to fix a car probably are, not to mention the self-esteem that comes from being able to do something and do it well.
Maybe therein lies an answer. If we believe that logical analysis, self-education, curiosity, and creativity are important skills for anyone, then we ought to teach are children things that foster these skills. Now the specific things we teach, like auto-mechanics, will probably differ from child to child according to their needs and interests. Still being a child myself (30), and I never intend on losing my childhood, I appreciate learning from people whatever they have to offer, especially the things that they have a certain "fire" for.
To this day I learn as much from people by example as I do by instruction.
For more information in regards to what we ought to teach our children, we probably ought to ask our resident teenagers what they would want to learn.
John Calvin
mercurial@disinfo.net
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