June, 2006

This fall we will welcome over 2,000 kindergarten children to their first day of school. What an exciting and scary day for them. They will come from many cultures, they will be many colors and they will each begin their thirteen year journey with different skills, attitudes and backgrounds.

Our community must ensure, through our schools, that despite their different starting points they leave in 2019 with two important things in common. They must have the knowledge and skills to have a family supporting career and actively participate in our society. Therein lays the challenge.

Those eager five year olds will still be in the workforce 53 years from now. Who knows what skills, both academic and personal, will be needed then. There are jobs today that we never dreamed of 40 years ago and there are jobs that we thought were forever that have been lost to time. The pace of that change seems to speed up.

How do we look ahead and be sure that we give our kindergarteners the best chance for succeeding in that ever changing world?

Actually, we build the foundation for success the same way we always have. The methods will certainly change over the next 13 years but the end result will still need to be the same. First and foremost, children must understand and be fluent in language. It doesn't matter if the words are read from a book, computer screen or a device that we haven't dreamed of yet, the ability to communicate will be critical.

2+2 will still be 4. As we move more and more to a knowledge economy it will not be acceptable to "not do math" as we hear many adults our age say every day. Understanding mathematics will be a key for many jobs. We have to find better ways to make a deep understanding of math accessible for all.

As I discussed in my first article this year, an educated citizenry is essential to the effectiveness of our government. We must help our students gain a deeper knowledge and appreciation of our country's history. Through increasing understanding, we have to nurture each future citizen's commitment to their individual responsibility for our society.

Lastly, in partnership with their families and the community, we must help each of them to develop as people. Who they are can't be taught from a textbook but has to come from inside, nurtured by the example each of us sets.

Many of these traits are simple — be honest, work hard, be on time, take pride in your work. Many are much more complex — learn to appreciate and celebrate the difference in others, learn to work together to accomplish a goal, learn to be a good parent and friend.

At the end of that 13 year journey, we have only laid the foundation for their future. There will be so many more things to learn and experience for each of them. Everything that happens after graduation day in 2019 will be built on what we as a community helped them to become. What a challenge!

Other Articles by Superintendent Rainwater