Tuesday 19 July 2016

Education is the Parents' Responsbility

In tribal, mountainous, subsistence cultures, nothing much changed from generation to generation - therefore elders were highly valued by youngsters for their practical life-experience, and youngsters helped the aged with their strength.

But in developed cultures, things are changing so rapidly, that now the aged depend on young people not only for physical help but also for expertise:

How to use electronic gadgets to do every day tasks like communicating, shopping, banking, paying bills, registering, etc. 

So there is less value placed on age.

Our school system could exacerbate that disparity though. Our children are spending so many of the best hours of their days, in some of the most impressionable years of their lives, outside the home. 

They learn a culture outside of their own family culture. They learn jargon not spoken at home. They become more connected to concerns outside of their own home culture. Values at home might seem less relevant to them.

And then when their parents age, their parents receive physical help from an institution, as much as from their kids. 

There's something to be said for the aged being looked after by their kids at home;

And for children doing more of their schooling at home!

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