HOW TO PREPARE CHILDREN FOR THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION

As technology continues to rapidly advance and change the way we live and work, it's important for parents to prepare their children for the future of education. The future of education will likely involve a greater use of technology, and will place a greater emphasis on skills such as creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. To help prepare their children for this future, parents can take several steps such as fostering a love of learning, developing strong study skills, encouraging technology proficiency, fostering creativity and critical thinking, promoting collaboration and by modelling empathy to them. By taking these steps, parents can help their children develop the skills and mindset they need to succeed in the ever-changing world of education.

Below are the steps to make your children future-ready:

1. Encourage a love of learning: Encourage your children to explore their interests and passions, and help them find ways to learn more about the things they enjoy. Create an atmosphere in the home where they feel loved and welcomed. Make them understand the importance of following one's interests and passion. Tell them that there are great benefits in being their authentic self. Show that you care about them and let them understand that you enjoy the things you do in your profession.

2. Develop strong study skills: Help your children learn how to set goals, organize their time and materials, and study effectively. You can help them design a reading or studying culture in the home. Have them paste their time-table in the corner of the room that is visible to them, you can also request for your child's subjects termly scheme of work and work towards studying topics ahead of the class. Also reward their efforts to become better or when they make steps to improve on their study skills.

3. Encourage technology skills: The future of education will likely involve a greater use of technology, so help your children develop the skills they need to use technology effectively. Teach them how to be good digital citizens. It is not enough to be able to navigate a technology device but how you use it responsibly and respectfully. Model the right way to use technology for good.

4. Foster creativity and critical thinking: Encourage your children to think outside the box, solve problems, and approach learning in new and creative ways. The future workplace requires individuals who are creative and critical thinkers. As a parent, you can engage your children in activities that spark their curiosity and critical thinking skills. Children love to ask questions and whenever they do, patiently give them the right answers and you can also explore some answers to a task together. Make them understand that the heroes of the 21st century are people who are able to proffer creative solutions to the challenges facing the world today. Introducing to the 17 Global goals is a good way to start.

5.Promote collaboration: Help your children learn how to work well with others and collaborate effectively, which will be valuable skills for the future of education. Collaboration begins from home. How do they settle conflicts amongst themselves (siblings)? Does he/she fit in quickly into a new environment? As parents in this age, we need to build and practise this skills too. Do you do all the chores alone or you assign the duties to everyone in the family? How do you ensure that everyone is able to perform his or her given tasks? The kids are watching, if we can start building this skill in our children from home, it will be easier for teachers to build on.

6. Model Empathy: Empathy simply means walking in another person's shoes. If we want kids to be kind, we need to be kind too. If we want kids to be polite, we need to be polite too. If we want kids to show empathy to people, we need to show empathy too. The keyword here is MODEL! MODEL!! MODEL!!!

Having technological skills, problem-solving skills, a love for learning and collaboration without empathy is like breaking a rotten egg into a bowl of fresh eggs. It spoils the whole mixture. Empathy is a skill that people need to make a difference in this world.

Kindly drop a comment on which of these steps resonate with you and share other ways you have been preparing your children to be future ready.