What your child should learn now to make a successful career in the future

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We tell you what subjects are missing in the school curriculum, how online education will help the traditional one, and give advice on how to start learning important skills for your child.

School education is the most important social institution that provides fundamental knowledge. Information technology and automation are now playing a big role, which means that schools must adapt to new realities. We found out what subjects should be introduced into the school curriculum, and also asked Alena Vladimirskaya, the founder of the recruiting agency Pruffi, how a modern school should change.

Alena Vladimirskaya Founder of the recruiting agency Pruffi

Introducing subjects to school based on the current needs of the labor market is dangerous. The average student will enter the labor market in at least five years. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce subjects into the school with a perspective, with a "little bit".

The difficulty lies in the fact that when a student enters the labor market, his basic education will become very outdated. As well as outdated, for example, our basic education during the next scientific and technological revolution, which came at the beginning of the XXI century. Progress develops in leaps and bounds, a critical base of knowledge, skills and discoveries is accumulating.

What to teach

Basic programming

Chatbots, drones, VR, the Internet of Things, and other great technologies would not have come about without programming. The demand for programmers in the labor market is great, many companies in a crisis try to go online and automate processes in order to keep up with the times.

The current school computer science course is clearly not up to date. Children from an early age know how to use a computer, use the Internet and perform other basic actions. It is necessary to bring the school curriculum in line and introduce a basic programming course.

Of course, not all children will become IT professionals in the future. But at least you need to understand how these processes work. Many universities are already opening special programming courses for schoolchildren; there are many online training programs. Why not introduce this course to schools on an ongoing basis?

In the West, they thought about it a few years ago. For example, the article ("Should Everyone Learn to Program") discusses the ubiquitous introduction of programming in American schools.

“Everyone should master computational thinking (mathematical thinking. - Ed. Note). It develops abstract thinking and teaches you to divide tasks into small parts. Programming is one way to acquire this skill,”says Jeannette Wing, corporate vice president of Microsoft Research.

It is imperative to teach you how to program, especially at the beginner level, even if you are a humanities girl and will never be a programmer and engineer. This systematizes thinking very much, gives an understanding of consistency and structure, and in the world in which we will live, this is very important.

Alena Vladimirskaya

What to do

• "1C" courses of basic programming for schoolchildren throughout Russia. Try to enroll your child there.
• Use our instruction for those who want to learn how to program. In it, we told you where to start and where else you can master the basic things.
• Browse our selection of educational platforms for learning coding.

Fundamentals of Financial and Legal Literacy

In 2015, the Russian (NAFI) studied the level of financial literacy of adolescents. Experts have found that Russian teenagers have a vague idea of loans and deposits. Only in the older age group (14-17 years old) were they able to define the concepts of “deposit” and “savings book”, but almost no one was able to explain what a deposit is.

According to experts, such a low level of literacy is due to the fact that parents do not have proper financial management skills. According to a survey conducted by NAFI in 2015, 34% of Russian adults rated their level of financial literacy as unsatisfactory, another 46% as satisfactory.

According to a Standard & Poor’s study, only 38% of Russians are financially literate. This is the level of countries like Zimbabwe and Mongolia. On this occasion, we even made a test that will help determine your level of financial literacy.

Obviously, schools need to introduce the basics of financial literacy and explain to children what money is, how to dispose of it, what is a deposit and a loan, what is the interest rate, the exchange rate, and so on.

Legal literacy is closely related to financial literacy. It is not enough to know the names of the codes and the chapters of the constitution. It is necessary to teach applied things that will be useful to children in the future: drawing up contracts and other standard documents, basic rules for obtaining insurance, loans and deposits.

Legal and financial literacy is of course also important. I would define it, rather, as a civic consciousness, which is expressed in the legal, financial components, tolerance. This is the ability to live in a diverse society and not perceive it as a threat and as some form of violence. The school can provide both financial and legal literacy, the foundations of tolerance.

Alena Vladimirskaya

What to do

• Download the free book "", which will introduce your child to the basics of personal finance.
• If your child is a teenager, offer him to take the course of Sberbank "Finance is simple".
• Read Lifehacker's articles on personal finance, many of which will be useful and understandable for children.

Ability to learn

Nowadays, Russian education is criticized a lot, but it remains at a high level. According to Alena Vladimirskaya, the Russian school provides good fundamental knowledge, but poorly teaches to learn. What does it mean? This means that in Russian schools little is explained how to acquire knowledge, process and analyze information. It is especially important to teach children to find knowledge in non-obvious sources.

There is a concept in English. Its essence is to teach a child not just to cram the material, but to understand it and answer the question "why?" In general, it is similar in meaning to what Alena Vladimirskaya is talking about.

The main thing to teach a student is to learn. In fact, Russian education provides very good fundamental knowledge. And in this sense, we are really ahead of the rest of the planet.

But, unlike European and American schools, we do not teach to learn. This means that we do not teach to look critically at knowledge, do not teach to obtain knowledge, especially from non-obvious sources. The ability to learn is the most important thing, because today's schoolchildren will live in a different world, and the ability to adapt and learn quickly based on the fundamental knowledge that we have is very important.

Alena Vladimirskaya

What to do

• Albert Einstein said: “I have no special talents. I'm just extremely curious. " This confirms once again that your child can achieve success if he is curious. Introduce him to the principles of one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, perhaps they will motivate him.
• Children love to ask all kinds of questions to adults. Answer them correctly, so as not to extinguish the fire of curiosity, but at the same time do not reveal all the cards. Let the child do his own research.

Presentation skills

It is very important to be able to present information, to sell yourself in the broad sense of the word. Many books have been written about this, there are courses on storytelling and presentation design, many services, but it is better to get basic skills while still at school. According to Alena Vladimirskaya, this plays a decisive role in the modern world.

Schoolchildren need to be given presentation skills. This is the problem. We do not know how to sell ourselves or projects, we are always lying in one direction or another - either in a plus or a minus. We do not know how to speak, argue, argue qualitatively, without getting personal and insulting. This is extremely important in the world of innovation, where the conceptual apparatus and the ability to correctly reason are valued.

Alena Vladimirskaya

What to do

• Advise your child the book "Presentation Mastery" by Alexei Kapterev. It reveals many aspects of public speaking: the correct design of the slides, the built story, verbal and non-verbal communication with the audience.
• Seth Godin provides simple tips for making your presentation better. Even a child will understand his recommendations.

Vocational guidance

How to determine the future profession and specialty of a student? There are short career guidance courses in schools, but this is not enough for a complete picture. Often they are tailored to the professions of the past and today. But it's important to look ahead, right?

First, the student must choose the profession himself. This means that he should study what is really interesting to him. Secondly, he needs the help of people who are knowledgeable in this matter. They will help you draw up a “profession map” where the steps will be clearly described. If you think that these two lines - the student and the expert - do not intersect, then you are very mistaken. There are many more professions than you think.

Now all career guidance is aimed at the present and the past. That is, even if your child is given a vocational guidance, then, most likely, he will be driven into those professions that by the time of graduation from the university will no longer exist.

Yes, there will be no old-format lawyers. There will definitely be no old format marketers. And there will be no economists of the old format. And translators as they are now will disappear.

We ourselves are pushing our children into future unemployment. We push ourselves. With your own hands.

Alena Vladimirskaya

What to do

• If your child, for some reason, does not like to attend circles and sections, our article will help to understand the problem.
• It is not necessary to raise your child as a future entrepreneur, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to instill in him some principles. Rather, they are about common sense in general.

How online education can help traditional

Online education is trending. Judge for yourself: in the past few years, platforms such as Coursera, TED, Codeacademy and others have launched and expanded. Alena Vladimirskaya believes that online education can, if not replace, then definitely help the traditional become better and make learning more accessible.

Online shouldn't be the main compulsory form of education. It will not replace offline. But, of course, online will replace some of the pieces of education. For example, we are faced with the fact that we have a shortage of teachers in distant regions. The teacher teaches several subjects at once and teaches poorly, because of this, the level of English and mathematics is very poor. For children from remote areas, it is important to do the lessons partly online.

Secondly, there are advanced things that need to be taught. Schoolchildren from distant regions, for example, cannot study robotics at all. This is the lot of only a few large cities. It's damn shame that talented guys in small towns actually have to repeat the feat of Lomonosov. At the high school level, this is very strange.

Third, there should be more additional items. There is a basic framework, there is additional knowledge and skills that need to be acquired. For example, a girl wants to participate in musicals while living in a small town. Or, for example, a child wants to study with a specific teacher abroad.

Alena Vladimirskaya

Russian online projects

We have selected three of the most interesting educational projects that allow you to master a profession, get additional specialization, learn more about the humanities and better understand Russian history and culture.

Netology

"" Is a well-known Russian project that allows you to get additional qualifications online. Dozens of practicing professionals lead the teaching. Classes are held in the format of webinars, certificates are issued at the end of the training. Most of the courses are paid, but "Netology" sometimes provides free introductory classes in some disciplines.

Arzamas

is a non-profit educational project dedicated to the humanities. Users have access to courses in literature, history, art and other branches of knowledge. Among the lecturers there are 39 teachers: architects, art historians, musicians, historians, sociologists.

Open university

The Open University is a recently launched educational project. Currently, two courses are available to users: "Culture as Politics" and "Big Transit". Education is free, each lesson is accompanied by additional materials for a deeper immersion in the topic. At the end of the course, students take the final test and receive a certificate of completion.

As you can see, the school should not only provide basic fundamental knowledge, but also teach children practical skills. They will help the child find his place in the future.

Online education also plays an important role, complementing traditional education and helping to study additional subjects, expanding the horizons of the child.