Relationships open path to success in life
Print Edition
My parents often reminisce about their education back in 1960s England, where they were taught the “3Rs”: “Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic” (though apparently not spelling). As a child, I once looked through one of my father’s old math books. It revealed endless pages of hard calculations like 4,563+8,729 that he completed at an age of only five. It was shocked, but secretly glad I was born 30 years later.
By the time I began school in the early 90s, things were a little different. There was a definite shift toward a fourth “R” — relationships — being seen as an equally important aspect of education. We still filled exercise books with column sums and grammar drills. However, we were also sent on team-building holidays to go camping in the woods and cook for ourselves. We were assigned projects to work on in groups. We were encouraged to role-play alternative outcomes in different situations to help us reflect on our behavior. We applied our math skills to useful real-life situations.
In 2013, a survey in the UK of more than 2,000 childcare workers, parents and teachers suggested that social skills and independence are even more important than key academic skills, particularly in the early years of school. Of those questioned, 75 percent considered the ability to interact effectively with children and adults as key to starting school successfully. On the other hand, just 26 percent (and only 4 percent of the teachers asked) rated basic reading, writing and arithmetic as essential factors in a good start to a child’s school years.
Today, I am a teacher in the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program, which views education as far more than imparting knowledge. At my school, Shanghai United International School, Hongqiao campus, we are equipping students from China and all over the world with skills for life. We don’t know where our students will be in the future, what they will do or what options will be available to them. So, we give them opportunities to interact with others as often as possible. We model real life situations that they might face in the future. We also give them plenty of chances to make mistakes, to reflect on them and learn from them.
All teachers want to give their students the best possible start in life. I hope that developing my students’ relationships with others and building their social skills will help them overcome any challenges they might face.
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