Parenting Today for Tomorrow's Leaders – Educational Worries

My wife and I recently had the opportunity to attend a special event on the state of education in the Lexington area. It was a great event. Our local Super, the former Mayor, and the Chairman of the Pritchard Committee for Academic Excellence spoke to us. The event was hosted by a friend, Adam Edelen, who has a wonderful review (RTF format) of a book related to my topic.

The entire audience was made up of parents with young children. People on the front lines, if you will. We have a direct impact on our children’s day to day lives and practices that will allow them to succeed through school and when they are adults.

It’s safe to say that I am concerned that our educational system and the community that surrounds it are not fully aware of the risk we face and know how to take corrective actions.

What is the risk? The risk is seen in the results of an international computer programming contest. MIT was the only US school in the top 20. Russian, Chinese, and Indian schools creamed us. Would this have been the case twenty years ago?

This post is a wonderful and fair write-up of what we should do as a nation to prep our kids for being tomorrow’s leaders. However, for those of us not in top policy positions in government, we have to carve out strategies on how to raise our kids today.

We are in top policy positions in our households though. So I asked our Super what my wife and I can do to prep our sons. He said that we should put them in orchestra and make sure learning is fun. There are other programs we can put them in during or after school hours that bolster the likelihood of success, too.

What I’d really like to know is this: How do Indian, Russian, and Chinese parents help their kids?

I’d like to balance their techniques with traditional US-Suburbia parenting to have a well-balanced and disciplined couple of boys.

Any thoughts?