So where are the jobs? Jobs are going overseas where labor is cheap and immigrants fill many American factories. We live in a changed world. It’s Google’s Earth. It is now possible to live in Italy, do business in America, and have a virtual assistant in India, without missing a click. The internet has created a worldwide office space and marketplace that has a whole different set of rules.
The global marketplace and office space belongs to the ACTIVE, ENERGETIC, IMAGINATIVE; CREATIVE and NOISY people with laptops. They are self made experts who make money by selling products, advertising, entertainment and information online. They “tweet”, they “like” they “pin” they “post” they sell. It’s a “buy it now” world. You almost have to be hyperactive to compete in this market!
In the new marketplace the winners are the kids who couldn’t sit still in class, but learned to create YouTube videos at home. They now bring in thousands of dollars a month while making you laugh or are teaching you everything you need to know. The new rich are the creative kids who wouldn’t stop doodling all over their schoolwork. They started building websites, making apps, and designing digital magazines after curfew, in the basement. The talkative kids, who couldn’t be quiet, are starting social networks and selling ad space to the rest of us. The fidgety ones are designing the video games that the whole world plays. The kid who would not stop interrupting the teacher is the hacker who creates your viruses and then sell you virus protection, and you buy it!
Remember the kids who would never follow instructions? They are the self taught internet marketing gurus, who wouldn’t take advice from the professionals. The class clowns are now the entertaining bloggers that we love. The kids who were always late for school or just played hooky are the happy stay at home moms and dads, they are self publishers or music teachers who use the internet to find customers. They work from home or on the beach, they can live anywhere, they can homeschool their kids, they travel the world and earn a decent income at the same time. They don’t want to spend 50 hours a week living for the boss. They figured out that even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat, so they opted out.
But what about those good students who learned to sit still, be quiet, follow instructions, never ask questions, and never think for themselves? Many of them are working for the boss, clocking in, clocking out, waiting for Friday, dreading Monday… same as they did in school. It’s normal, right? The rest are the ones who are stomping their feet and waving their college degrees in the air. They are waiting for a dream job, a dream boss, and a dream paycheck to come find them. They were told that they had the golden ticket. No one told them that their dream job moved to India.
The world has changed but school children are still being educated to compete in a vanishing world. The current education system is based on a model that expired 50 years ago, and it can’t be fixed. What needs to change? The whole model of education. When will it change? Oh, that part is easy. The world will change for your child the moment you decide to take responsibility for his education. Why, because you know that your ACTIVE, ENERGETIC, IMAGINATIVE, CREATIVE, and NOISY child is not being prepared for the real world while sitting still and being quiet in a classroom.
Here is the main point. The education system may be failing, but you are still the PARENT! The ultimate responsibility for your child belongs to YOU. Not the bus driver, not the homeroom teacher, not the politicians. By the time the government finds out how to give your child a better education, your kids will be 50 years old, and that might be too late. What are you going to do? Maybe you don’t feel qualified to homeschool. Maybe there is no Montessori school near you. No excuses. You need to figure out how to solve this problem.
Maybe you need to do something bold. Your child’s future depends on you, and if your child is one of those kids who can’t sit still and be quiet… SMILE! You don’t have to be a child development specialist or have a teaching degree to be a wise parent. You know that children need lots of time to play, imagine, invent, and learn about the world around them by asking questions and experimenting… and in this modern world everything else can be learned on YouTube.
Here are some journals for your active kids!
