Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance.
Proverbs 1:5 NIV
Information is cheap and getting cheaper every day. I would say that the cost of education has dropped to nearly zero. That doesn’t mean people aren’t still paying for it, but it is available for free if you want it. Many parents send their kids to school to LEARN. They think that kids need to pile facts into their heads for thirteen years to be successful in life. “Do your homework.” “Listen to your teacher.” “Get good grades.” Parents think all those worksheets add up to an education and they want their kids to be educated so they can succeed. This is a mistake. Kids don’t need to go to school to learn. All those facts and figures don’t make them into complete humans. What do they need? Your kids need to learn HOW to learn. That’s the secret sauce!
There was a scene in the first Matrix movie that illustrates how we want our kids to act after they have been educated. Trinity and Neo have fled to the roof of a skyscraper, trying to escape pursuing agents that wanted them dead. A B-212 helicopter is on the helipad. “Can you fly that thing?” Asks Neo. “Not yet,” Trinity replies and walks confidently toward the chopper. She doesn’t know how to fly the helicopter, but she knows how to learn to fly it. Our kids need to be fluent in acquiring skills, confident at finding the answers, proficient at sorting through information and discerning the truth. We want our kids to be as certain as Trinity when faced with new challenges. “Do you know Trigonometry?” “Not yet.”
In the real world, it’s not as easy to learn as in The Matrix. After all, Trinity could have the program downloaded into her mind in seconds. But, consider the era we live in. If someone from any other time in history saw how we can access nearly all of human knowledge in seconds for free, they would call it magic. We need to cultivate the love of learning in our kids. It’s more important than anything else they learn in school, aside from basic reading, writing, and math. Teach your kids to take advantage of learning opportunities. Show them how knowledge can unlock doors and reveal new opportunities.
