How many of these questions about your children's schooling can you actually answer positively to? Is the current education system robbing you, your children and the world, of a generation of rounded, sociable, caring, intelligent, grown-ups?
I have four children, from 8-18 years old. I've been a governor of their school. I've seen this first hand...
Are schools preparing our children so that they can leave school, and then go on to have the best days of their life?
1 School
Are your children demotivated about school?
Are they being taught 'stuff' they consider relevant and therefore interesting? How often have you needed long division or algebra since you left school, apart from looking it up so you can try and help your own kids learn something they will never use again?
2 Are your kids being taught unless they achieve more than they naturally can, every single time, they are failing?
Our children's natural working level is to achieve 'B' But, they are being taught that they must achieve an 'A' in every single piece of work, every single day, of every single week. If they don't, they have failed.
3 Is school turning your children into perfectionists?
Never able to complete their work on time because they can't ever believe it is 'good enough' to achieve the 'higher' level that is expected of them - every single time?
4 Modern Studies
Are your kids learning about today's news and so will be able to converse to anyone at any time? What is happening in Syria, and why, what should the conclusion be? Even, where actually is Syria in the world?
What about the the floods, what causes them, why? Is anyone to blame? How can we stop it happening again?
5 Careers
What did you want to be when you were growing up? Are you doing that?
Are your kids being equipped and motivated to try and be what they want to be when they grow up?
Kids are leaving school with no hope of achieving their dreams. It is better to have hope, than none at all. It is better to have tried and failed, than to have never tried. Why do we consider them 'dreams' and not aims or targets?
6 Are your kids being taught that employers are not looking at qualifications? They want to see passion, self motivation and common sense.
A pass mark in any subject together with self-motivated work experience is far better than a high pass in a hard subject.
7 Are your kids being taught that office jobs are 90% boring unless you are doing something you love?
8 Are your kids taught to pursue the trappings of success?
Big house, fancy car, nice clothes, private gym membership etc? The very things that will trap them in an office 40 hours a week. Who's teaching them they could aim to earn less so they can do more?
9 Do your kids know what 'work' actually is?
What is an office? Who goes there? Who does what role? What happens in meetings and brainstorms? How do you succeed? How do you fail? How do you start a business and learn to fail and then start again?
10 Do your kids go to the same place every day and are schooled for an academic career that is meant to last until they are 65?
When they wont do the same job for longer than 10 years, wont work in the same place for 40 hours a week and will reach the peak of their career at 45. Are they being prepared for their entrepreneurial future?
11 Apprenticeship
Are your kids learning just one skill that they can always rely on?
My son goes to a school with a music specialism. What music has he done at school? Almost none. What has he done in his own time? Passed level 5 drums. I've told him if he left school with level 8 drums as his main achievement I would be happy. It gives him a chance to live his dreams AND a skill that he can always fall back on to earn an income.
12 Design & Technology
Are your kids learning to code?
The biggest employment opportunity we have - and will have for years. Any 16 year old who can code half decently could earn themselves £200 a day in London - tomorrow.
13 Private Education
Are your kids joining you on the treadmill?
Some of the unhappiest parents are those that were privately educated. They had an expectation placed on them to achieve well in a traditional career and now find themselves middle aged, unhappy, stressed, depressed and trapped in a job they dislike. Why? So they can afford to pay the fees for..guess what!?
14 Business studies
Are your kids taught about marketing?
So that they know the cool 'stuff' they want, has actually been very deliberately created by a pony-tailed balding agency 'creative', 'old person' with a multi-million pound budget, just to make them feel better about themselves?
15 PE
Are your kids motivated to eat well and do sport?
Versus the onslaught of multi-million ad campaigns, to get them to eat stuff like the newly launched, Kellogg's chocolate cornflakes. What next?? Chocolate-chip porridge?
16 Citizenship
Who is giving your kids the feeling of self worth that means they don't need to find it in the number of 'likes' they get on Instagram or Snapchat?
Do you even know what snapchat is?
17 Are your kids being taught that success is having fun & creating memories with friends and family?
Not reading about other people doing it online or in magazines?
How many did you answer positively to? If its less than all of them, send an email to your school head (maybe even copy this) and ask to discuss changing it - before it's too late.
Chris Ward
I am writing a series of features to inspire people to break a 200-year-old bad habit we have, to stop doing the one thing that that kills most of our time and energies - going to the same place for eight hours of every day, of every week, of every year, to do our work.
I help businesses become more successful and people become happier, by helping them change the way they work and showing them how forming a new #OutOfOffice habit will give them the time, money, motivation and confidence to improve anything they want in their life or business.