Educating Rural Children For Success

What should rural schools do to prepare young people for the future? What kind of skills do they need to be versatile enough to fit into the global economy and yet make a good life for themselves in a small town environment or in agriculture if they so choose? Will they avoid the traps of popular culture? Will they have enough self-control to manage their time and money and to work hard toward meaningful goals?

Smaller communities, especially in the rural Great Plains, are fighting for their economic existence. Parents, despite having managed a good life for themselves, take an ambivalent or pessimistic view about local opportunities and whether they would even want their children to return.

Personal strategies for young people who plan to return someday. Some of your parents have established viable enterprises or professions that are economically solid in their rural community. They will maintain their niche despite the population shrinkage that is to come.

You may plan to step into a family business some day, but you need to experience success in another environment. Develop skills that are transferable to the mainstream economy and, at the same time, adds competitive value to the family business. Preparing for a second career will give you a competitive edge, the self-confidence that comes from having alternatives, and a source of secondary income.

Your success will be in your ability to have vision as the economic environment and opportunities change. You will probably be a leader in your home community and will need all of the speaking and persuasive skills you can command to fill the roles you will be asked to play. Develop your personality, skills and self-confidence in challenging environments and return only when you are sure of your long term goals.

Strategies that prepare students for success in a global economy.

- High tech and computer savvy will put the children squarely in the middle of the information age. There is a world class education available at everyone’s fingertips. The emerging world of e-commerce has great potential for transforming the way we live and the way to make money. Children need technical know-how plus a vision of how the Internet connects people and markets world-wide. They need to mine it for its educational possibilities.

- Many information-age businesses are location neutral. Young people with skills can choose where they will live. Many private consultants or entrepreneurs will find self-employment possible and desirable. Increasingly, employees of large companies can telecommute to their work site.

- Expose youths to opportunities to meet and interact with their peers from other communities and bigger cities. Parents can use summer camps, vacations and youth leadership programs to help their children become more comfortable about being in places other than their hometown. This will give them self-confidence for living away from home and to see advantages and opportunities for doing so.

- A great deal of youth development takes place in extra-curricular activities, both school and community based. Get teens involved in programs with a purpose and allow them to develop leadership and team-building skills as they work together.

Strategies that prepare children to succeed in a rural environment.

- School administration can help ensure that the curriculum includes an appreciation of how rural life has distinctive values and coherence as a way of life. This can be done with exposure through English and Social Studies programs that take regional and local literature and history as a part of their course of study. Local politics and history will help provide the context of who they are and that they are not an inferior subset of a post-modern culture.

- Through programs on entrepreneurship, teens can be connected with local people who are successful and outstanding in their fields and businesses. They need to be exposed to role models of how to think globally and live locally. If there is a future in small towns, it will belong to the entrepreneurs and those individuals who find a niche and excel in their field of chosen endeavor.

- Have a youth-friendly community. Serve them. Give them opportunities to serve the community. Help them feel connected to the community before they leave. People learn to love what they serve.

Young people’s positive memories of their own family life and having special experiences of growing up in a rural community will exert a emotional pull on them as they assess career opportunities. Besides viable economic prospects and wholesome family life, understanding their community and how it fits into life will be the biggest motivational factor: a big draw for rural youths to return.

Some warnings for parents, church leaders and school administrators.

- Rural teens can focus too much on teen drinking and entertainment without catching the urgency of having a quality education. There is danger in being complacent about the competitive world they are about to enter. Young people need parents and educators who push them to excel and to be goal-oriented.

- Sports consciousness can be too powerful. It can occupy the minds and energies of youth and their parents at the expense of an education that will make a difference. Sports need to be handled in moderation. Other facets of the curriculum need appropriate emphasis.

- Finally, religious and family life education is important to help youth no matter where they live. Avoiding the pitfalls of debt, sexual mistakes, cohabitation or poor marriages can position them on a difficult track of life. Without being grounded in good values, youths can make a mess of their lives that will make career success irrelevant.