Our standards are too low.
Parents nowadays are too easily satisfied with "good grades." Good grades doesn't mean jack in the real world. What I'd like to see a little hands-on application. It's one thing to recite knowledge, but its another to put it into action.
So rather than reward our sons and daughters for getting good grades in school, we should actually assign them projects. Given our access to technology, I don't think such assignments are out of the range of your average school student.
What kind of assignments you ask?
Tell them to make a movie. It's really easy nowadays to record footage and splice them together.
Tell them to get all their classmates information. Give them a bit of a salesmanship savvy.
Tell them to write a story, fictional or real.
Tell them to make goals, and make them connect the dots necessary to complete the goals.
Tell them to record things, to keep tracks of small details like what kind of clothes people are wearing at school, what kind of accessories are popular, and how often they're worn.
Just tell them to make things.
The thing about all these tasks?
They're quantifiable. The results are observable, tangible, and real. These are the kinds of things that count for more in life than letter grades.
I beseech you, let's raise the bar for our youth.
