Education for Life

We believe an education is necessary for a successful life.

By Ann Janauer, Ph.D.
Principal

Here at The Family Foundation School an academic education has always been a central part of our focus. This is because we believe that an education is necessary for a successful life. What I mean by this is three things. First there is the obvious basic understanding of math and science combined with the communication skills gained in language education and in an understanding of how the world works on a societal and political level. But we are also talking about a more fundamental education in how to evaluate information that is presented to you and how to gather and organize new information so that you can use it. Lastly on an even more fundamental level we know that there is a real joy and a feeling of self worth associated with honestly striving for excellence. This is as true for mastering an academic subject as it is for other endeavors like mastering the skills needed for a sport, a craft, a hobby, or an occupation.

There is no doubt that the adult world is a competitive one. This has never been truer than it is right now. If I were writing this post 20 years ago I think I would have been able to say that more and more job opportunities requiring little or no post high school education are moving overseas or are disappearing all together. Now I would have to speak in the past tense.

Today there are no high paying jobs to be had that do not require post high school education. Our students need to be able to compete in a world where being fluent in two or more languages is expected of everyone, where learning calculus before going to college is the norm and where using technology to communicate your ideas is an everyday (every hour) thing. Today our students must have a college education to compete for the better jobs and once they get to college they will find that they are already behind in the competition compared to their contemporaries from other countries. I think my parents knew this instinctively when they started the family school. As a result they have always pushed education. It was never acceptable to just do the bare minimum to graduate. If there is room in your schedule and you have the ability you need to take more math and science. Everyone was pushed to take “college preparatory” courses (long before “No Child Left behind”). Everyone was pushed to meet a higher standard and the standards were never lowered for anyone. This does not mean that we do not acknowledge that different students are starting with differing abilities and backgrounds. But the fundamental philosophy is to find a way to compensate for personal difficulties and to meet the challenge and the standard anyway. In the competitive world no one is going to give me extra time or second chances. If I do not perform as well as or better than my coworker my coworker will get the promotion or keep the job over me. Therefore if I do not have the knowledge or the skill I need to compete I have to work overtime, on my own time, whenever possible to gain the knowledge and skills required. This is why our standards for academic advancement is higher than most schools and it is also why we have extensive tutoring and mentoring opportunities in place for our students.

No one can predict the precise bits of information a person will need going forward from high school or college. The world and requirements for success in the world changes too rapidly and there are an infinite number of possibilities branching out from each choice an individual makes. So how do you adequately prepare a person to be successful? The old saying give a man a fish and you feed him for a day but teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime fits here. We can teach our students the specific information they need to pass an exam or we can teach them how to learn and how to teach themselves. Each person needs to have the skills to educate him or herself. We feel strongly that it is essential to include at the core of a student’s High school education lessons in how to find, evaluate, organize, and use information on their own.  Students need to be taught how to ask questions, how to seek out the answers to those questions, how to evaluate the answers they find and then finally how to draw conclusions from that new information which can be generalized to other areas. This will improve our student’s performance going forward in life no matter what occupation they chose to pursue. More importantly it will allow them to feel confidence and be justified in that confidence.

Lastly we believe that anything worth doing is worth doing well and we attempt to expose our students to the principle of the spirit of excellence. We know that real self esteem comes from developing a pattern of successes. But we also know that success is valued more highly by the individual when real effort was required to achieve this. If there is no challenge involved then there is no real feeling of accomplishment associated with the success. For this reason we make every effort to challenge our students to do their best and not to set their goals and objectives based on the minimum external requirement but rather based on what they themselves are capable of achieving. In practical terms this translates into an academic policy to have every student take as many courses in each subject area as they are capable of completing in 4 years of high school. We strongly discourage capable students from electing to avoid certain courses simply because it is not “required” for graduation. When we have a student who is working to their full potential they are rewarded with a sense of accomplishment, increased self esteem, and knowledge that challenges can be met with discipline and hard work. They lose their fear of failure and they gain confidence in their own abilities.

We believe an education is necessary for a successful life because we believe a successful life requires understanding of the physical world and society, self discipline, self confidence, and the ability and commitment to learn, grow and adapt. A well structured and designed High school experience, focused on the process of learning, as well as the facts, having meaningful standards can accomplish that.