You, Your Child and School – book summary

Navigate Your Way to the Best Education

Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica

Allen Lane (13 Mar. 2018)

Book | eBook | Audio

About the author:

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, was an internationally recognised leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human potential. He advised governments, corporations, education systems, and some of the world’s leading cultural organisations. The videos of his famous TED talks have been watched by an estimated 300 million people in over 150 countries.

Lou Aronica is the author of two novels and co-author of several works of non-fiction, including The Culture Code (with Clotaire Rapaille) and The Element.

About the book:

Key ideas from the book:

Why should you read this book?

“So how this book can help you? I hope it will be useful in three ways. The first is by looking at the sort of education your children need these days and how it relates to your roles as parent. Parents often think their children need the same sort of education they had themselves. It depends on what sort of education they did have, but in general, that’s probably not true. The world is changing so quickly now that education has to change too. The second is by looking at the challenge you face in helping them to get that education. Some of those challenges have to do with public policies for education and some more generally with the times we live in. The third is by looking at your options and power as a parent to overcome these challenges”.

We came across this book after watching Sir Ken Robinson’s famous TED talk “Do schools kill creativity?” (if you haven’t watched it yet – check it out). That was at the point of time when our eldest son was about to start school…and Sir Ken Robinson totally changed our perspective towards education. This book actually helped us understand what is really important in education nowadays and how we can help our kids get the best out of school. It is based on Robinson’s decades of experience and absolutely packed with wisdom. We would recommend it to every parent (and again, watch Robinson’s talks as well!).

World is changing – the education needs to change as well

“One of the reasons you have to think differently about education these days is that the world your children are living in so different from the one that you and your parents grew up in.”

The way governments design the education system is motivated by the economic needs of the country. It is a major political issue nowadays. They don’t think about your child in particular, but rather about the workforce as a whole and gross national product. To simplify, they want to prepare professionals who would help them to make a profit. The issue is that many educational systems are still focused on the needs of industrial economies: the common workforce shape is mainly blue-collar with a small professional class. However, the whole world has changed significantly for the last few decades, and that means that education should catch up as well:

• Families are changing– on average, around 60% of children in the US live in families where their biological parents are married, but the rest 40% live in different circumstances (single parent, same-sex parents, blended families, etc.). Therefore parenting nowadays is more about fulfilling particular roles rather than “being a specific blood relative”.
• Children are changing– they face loads of pressure from social media and, in general, maturing younger. They become less healthy and less active.
• Work is changing– technologies totally disrupt the existing workplaces and create new ones. And it’s getting hard to predict which jobs will be relevant in 5-10-15 years from now.

The whole world is changing, and it is changing faster than ever on every front: cultural, political, environmental and social. Unfortunately, the education system has a long way to catch up. The main issues are:

1. too much focus on STEM disciplines – the modern world needs more creative people: “…thriving economies are not created by scientists, engineers, and mathematicians alone. They depend on the talents of entrepreneurs, investors, and philanthropists; they also flourish through the work of designers, writers, artists, musicians, dancers, and performers”
2. education became all about testing and competition – schools focus too much on preparing children for tests, leaving not much room for creativity. It causes enormous stress for everyone and destroys students’ natural love for learning.
3. too much academism – focusing on academic knowledge, education doesn’t consider the skills that children will need in their future jobs – creativity, flexibility, collaboration, teamwork, and emotional intelligence.
4. public education is expensive for the government, so with all means, they try to shift the expenses to parents – the private educational sector is blooming ☺

For those, who have an opportunity to pick and choose a school for a child, Robinson shares very practical ideas on how to choose the best one (we’ll cover it a bit later, but check out the book for more). He also gives tips on how you as a parent can get involved and facilitate change in a good school to make it even better. But for most of us, that’s not the case. If you don’t have much choice, Robinson gives few ideas on how you can support your child through all that time at school.

All kids are different – know your child

“Your children are genetically similar to all other children, but they are also unique individuals”.

Sir Ken Robinson is a big advocate of the idea that every child is unique, has unique talents and intelligent in various ways. So parents’ role is to help their child discover his natural talents and create an environment to help him develop abilities through childhood and adolescence.

“It doesn’t follow that children who realise their gifts will always be happy, but those who do are more likely to lead lives that reward them and benefit others. This will be especially so if you help your children discover the pleasure that comes from doing well in something they really care about.”

Robinson’s philosophy is that every child is smart in his/her own way. Our role as parents is to find out what are our child’s strengths and focus on them. Usually by choosing the right school.  One size does not fit all.

Question for you – do you know YOUR CHILD? What are his/her strengths? How can you know him/her better?

Our role as parents

“As a parent, your overall role is to give your children the best shot at having a happy, productive life”.

Every child is unique, and you have to customise your relationship with each of your child. Our roles as parents are mostly influenced by our perception of childhood (often influenced by our own experience) and cultural values and beliefs.  Robinson uses Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to describe parents’ role in child’s life:

• Physiological needs – that’s basics which parents need to provide to kids: food, water and shelter. Note – nutrition is super important, so be mindful about what you eat and what you feed to your child.
• Safety – our role is to keep them away from harm, but here we need some balance, so don’t overprotect. “Children need to feel safe, but they need to grow strong and independent too”.
• Love and belonging – parental love is not a fixed recourse, so our job as parents is to create an atmosphere of love and belonging for each of our child. This will help them to become more self-confident and resilient.
• Esteem – “how your children live their lives has much to do with how they value themselves and others”. Self-esteem is super important to flourish in life, so we need to actively engage in children’s moral education, set boundaries, and help them learn how to make decisions (can’t recommend enough The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden – best book on the topic, check out our notes)
• Self-actualisation – happy people have a purpose in life. Our role as parents is to support our children in finding their sense of direction in life. We need to help them to develop their passions and their interests, to unwrap their talents.

Key point – as parents, our main job is to create the best possible conditions and opportunities for our children to grow.

“Ultimately, our job as parents is to create an environment where our children can be as strong, resourceful, and fulfilled as they can be. Our children are capable of accomplishing so much, but only if we help them become independent of us. You need to be clear about your roles, understand who your children are as individuals, help them find their own spark of “genius”, and help them hone their bodies and their spirits. To do all of that you need to play an active role in how they’re educated.”

Sir Ken Robinson outlines the main problems of modern life, which our children are currently facing:

• loads of stress – 8 out of 10 teenagers in the US experience extreme or moderate stress during the school year. Main stressors are usually academic performance, tests, getting into a good college, parental pressure to excel academically. Prolonged exposure to stress leads to a variety of psychological problems in adulthood;
• loads of time online – digital culture has changed the way our children spend time and how they build relationship with others;
• technology, in general, is changing kids’ brain and the way how they feel and think – leads to all varieties of physical, psychological and behavioural disorders;
• health issues – more and more children are following an unhealthy lifestyle. Poor nutrition choices and spending too much time indoors lead to obesity and other health issues.

To help children to stop all these problems from building up and mitigate them, you can do the following (good for adults as well ☺):

• Let them sleep – sleep is essential for health and peak performance, but in the modern world, the sleep crisis is global. So help your kids to build an efficient sleep routine – quantity and quality of sleep matter. For adults as well (check out TED talk “Sleep is your superpower” by Matthew Walker – we bet this will motivate you to go to bed earlier)
• Get them up – exercise is super important for healthy brain development. It makes us feel better, helps us think better, improves creativity, memory and overall health. Kids have their bodies for a reason – they are designed to move, run around and explore, so you can encourage them to get up and move for at least 1 hour a day. And playing outdoors help your kids sleep better too!
• Let them play – free play is essential for human development. “Play is the work of a child, and children must have time, space, and permission to engage in a variety of play in order to maximise the developmental benefits that play offers.” The problem is that we often plan too many activities for our children, so there is no space left for unsupervised and self-initiated play, which is so important for kids cognitive, emotional and social development. So you can provide the recourses for play, but let them play without your supervision and structure.
• Get them out – spending time in nature positively affects our mental, physical and spiritual health. A brisk walk outdoors also improves cognitive abilities.
• Let them fall – when we become overprotective, our children don’t learn how to judge risk for themselves. So our role is to teach them how to explore the world safely by introducing them to risk through measured and supervised exposure.
• Let them fly – children need to develop resilience, perseverance and self-control so they could thrive in life. Technically, we need to help them develop grit.

These are the key things – make sure your child has a sufficient energy level and top it up with grit and growth mindset ☺

Education – what makes a school great?

Sir Ken Robinson gives the best answer to the question of why do we need education:

“To enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them so that they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens.”

In a nutshell, a great education is about preparing our children for a happy and successful life. That’s what it has to be.

Basically, we need it to find a good job and make a living. For many people, that would be a number one motivation ☺Schools also play a significant role in our social development – the best schools “actively encourage social learning through group activities, collaborative projects, and community programs.” Education is also very much about enriching children’s understanding of their own culture and enabling them to appreciate cultural diversity.

But children can benefit the most from the education when it also offers personal development – that’s about creating the conditions in which children WANT to learn, helping them handle their inner worlds of thoughts and feelings, and ultimately helping them to discover their “Element” (purpose in life).

Robinson makes a point that even though the majority of schools mostly focus on propositional/factual knowledge (“knowing that”), great schools also provide two more types of knowledge: “knowing how” (that’s about applying these facts and ideas and getting things done) and “knowing this” (that’s about understanding ourselves and our relationships with others, essential for our well-being).

That’s basically what your child NEEDS in terms of education to succeed in life. Robinson also shares eight key competencies, which children need to develop in school:

• Curiosity
• Creativity
• Criticism
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Compassion
• Composure
• Citizenship

Question for you – is your child’s school providing the kind of education he/she really NEEDS? How can you help your child develop these competencies outside of school?

Tackling the problems

“If you don’t feel that young people today are especially stressed, you’re not alone. A recent survey shows a wide gap between how stressed young people feel and how stressed their parents think they are. Almost half of the teenagers studied felt seriously stressed; only a third of their parents noticed.”

That’s the US statistics, and it would be interesting to do the same study across the globe, of course. But the fact is that children get stressed (for different reasons), and parents sometimes don’t even notice. Here are seven strategies to help parents “keep in touch with their children’s emotional states” (that basically means that you need to become a mindful parent):

• Don’t ignore the signs that your child is struggling: watch closely for behaviour changes – are there any signs that your child is struggling?
• Don’t trivialise how your child is feeling: don’t just assume that your child is going through a “phase”. Check in and ensure that there isn’t something specific that’s changing your child’s outlook and behaviour.
• Be sensitive and attuned, not reactive or parental: that’s about having an open dialogue with your child, without reacting defensively to what they have to say.
• Invite them to spend time with you: playing or simply being together may help your child to open up about any troubles he might experience.
• If they don’t talk to you, help them find a situation (someone) they trust: that means that you can let them know that you endorse their (them) speaking to someone.
• If they are in real trouble, get them the help they need: “Some parents fail to seek help for their children because they don’t want to be perceived by others as having troubled children. If this is you, you need to get over it.”
• Take care of your emotional health: children have this incredible ability to attune to our emotional state. So it is also wise to check regularly on your own emotional health.

In the book, Robinson also covers two big issues: bullying and ADHD. Check out the book for more.

Help your child to find own Element

“Finding your Element can be a tricky thing – so tricky that we dedicated an entire book to the topic. Helping your children find theirs can be even more troublesome. One way to relax about this is to understand that your role isn’t to identify your kids passion for them; it’s to create the conditions in which they can find their talents and interests for themselves”

Having a passion and purpose in life is crucial for our well-being. In fact, it is the foundation for developing grit and achieving success in life. So it would be wise to help our children to develop their interests and talents from early childhood.

That resonates a lot with Willam Daimon – in “The Path to Purpose” (check out the notes), he writes:

“I am entirely confident in asserting that the urgent project for parents today, in this world of increasing economic, cultural, and social uncertainty, is to help their children gain a wholesome sense of direction that will carry them through the minefields of drift, confusion, apathy, anxiety, fear, and self-absorption that threaten their generation. I am also convinced that the key to this sense of direction is finding a life purpose. While a parent cannot simply give a purpose to a child, and indeed any too forceful or controlling effort to do so is likely to have adverse repercussions, nonetheless there is much that a parent can do.”

Here are few suggestions on what you can do:

• Know your child’s unique interests – watch for signs of serious interests in particular pursuits. As Damon puts it: “listen closely for the spark, then fan the flames”
• Think outside of the box – enrich child’s experience to uncover new interests. “Passion is not limited to playing fields and theatrical stages. It can exist in the kitchen, in the workshop, in the woods outside your back door, or in any number of other places.”
• Nurture optimism – help your kids to look optimistically at what they do. Optimism encourages healthy risk-taking, better problem-solving skills and helps children experience positive relationship.
• Avoid judgement – be open to any interest your child decides to pursue. Don’t judge and don’t criticise.

Key takeaways:

1. Help your child to find his own Element by creating the conditions in which he can discover his talents and interests for himself
2. Ensure your child’s basic needs are met: let him sleep, get him up, let him play, get him out.
3. Think about “the best fit” for your child – what are his strengths (e.g. art, maths, music) and is there any school which can help him develop these talents.

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