A Lesson in Kids' Education

My wife and I had a sales guy selling us a Math education software for the kids. We chickened out. It was expensive and that was half the reason. The other half was that this education package was just not good education. Our kids would wind up sitting in front of the computer for some time every day and work things out with minimal parental supervision, which subsequently disappears as they get a bit older. We'd also get 20 hours of free phone tutoring, but that's just not right. It would also be too tempting for my wife and myself to go hands-off just because this software was available for them to use. That's exactly where things would go wrong. It's not just a matter of wanting to raise them up and guide them, but as Mr. Incredible said, our kids are our biggest adventure, and we don't want to miss that. The sales guy gave this pitch (with a slideshow presentation!) that got me thinking. He gave us visuals on how schools educate our children like building a layered stack structure. The claim is that they may do such a bad job that they leave a gaping hole in the middle of the very first layer. The result is that there's the same gaping hole on each layer as they are laid. What got me thinking was that it will take our time, mine and my wife's, in order to ensure that we don't have such a shoddy stack -- and I hadn't been putting that time in. That's got to change. And of course, this whole thing also applies in other aspects of their education, not just Maths.