Leadership’s Future: Is That Change In The Wind?
June 4, 2009 by Miki Saxon
Steady readers of Leadership’s Future know that I am thoroughly alarmed and dismayed by the Millennial MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) regarding such mundane stuff as accountability, honesty and entitlement along with the No Child Left Behind fiasco and its focus on grades-for-funding.
Two articles caught my eye this week, both on a very positive note.
Education
The first is an overview discussing what Arne Duncan, the new education secretary, did in Chicago and wants to do nationally. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot more than we’ve seen in years. Not only that, but the price tag per school isn’t that outrageous considering what I’ve seen previously and he doesn’t seem to expect states to pull the funding out of thin air as NCLB did.
It won’t be a silver bullet (what is), but maybe we’re finally moving (glacially) in a positive direction.
Parenting
The second article is even more encouraging, since it looks at parents—who are at the heart of this mess.
Like most other things, parenting styles change—call it parenting-by-fad.
But I see this new fad as a move in the right direction. It’s about letting kids play, doing less and (maybe) realizing that your kids are not the center of the universe or even your primary purpose in life.
How’s that for revolutionary?
Can you imagine? Instead of having every minute of every week packed with scheduled functions, parents would expend some of that energy making sure that their kids used the free time to run around, play using their imaginations, read, think and dream, as opposed to texting, keyboarding or watching TV.
They could use some of the extra time and energy that went into keeping their offspring on schedule to staying involved with their spouse and some more on feeding their own soul.
They might even have enough energy to learn to say ‘no’ and stop indulging their kids to the point of entitlement.
Sounds like a trip to Fantasy Island, but who knows, it might be part of the recession’s silver lining.
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Image credit: Bill A on flickr