Risk – Personal.

Just over 100 years ago the average western family had 8 children and the parents were survived by two children. Two things happened, antibiotics were invented, and we got a whole lot wealthier. Now it is considered unnatural for a parent to outlive a child.

The role of educating our children has grown from being that of the parent to that of the parent and the government. Parents educate children at home; the government educates children at school, University and through welfare.

The question is what is education? 

Stephen Hicks defines education as: “The process of learning and teaching the young the knowledge and skills necessary for adult life.” Where an adult is someone who is capable of functioning in the real world, and this means being self-reliant.

The real world is somewhere where there is cause and effect and where things happen in space and time. Your world is a function of what you do in the world, you need to be prepared for the result of your actions. The real world is full of pain and suffering. People get sick, they fail, they have accidents and they are the subject of fraudulent behaviour by others. 

( If you have a spare 9 hours you can view his course through http://www.stephenhicks.org/education/philosophy-of-education-course-lectures/ but the Intro is worth 4 mins. http://www.stephenhicks.org/2010/03/24/philosophy-of-education/)

Education requires that you are taught the necessary skills to cope with failure, fraud, oppression, ill health, chaos, love and success. 

The other side of the story says that the responsibility of the teacher is to do no harm. And that leads to the greatest conundrum of 21^st Century society. 

Harm is physical injury but is synonymous with hurt, pain, suffering, distress, anguish, trauma, torment, grief, and mischief.

How do you prepare someone for life in the real world, which will require coping with harm, while not exposing them to harm?

All learning requires repetition, doing it again and again. So how do you learn to cope with failure, fraud, fear, oppression, ill health, chaos, love and success if you are never exposed to them.

A retired primary school teacher noted a few years ago the main difference between the playground today and 50 years ago was the lack of band aids and plaster casts. We do not want children to hurt themselves, but we have to expose them to danger, pain, and loss, otherwise how will they cope in the real world.

Today in the home and in school every kid wins a prize. In the real world most people do not get to win prizes. Coping with loss is one of the important lessons children need to learn. As adolescents they need to practice losing so that when they move into the real world they can cope with loss.

Universities have created safe spaces. Guess what? There are no safe spaces in the real world. 

Universities have also made allowances for people who have suffered trauma in their lives as a result of race, gender, family or religion. Guess What? The real world doesn’t care.

Even when we get out into the semi real world Government is there with welfare to act as a safety net for those that have not become adults.

The conundrum is there for all teachers as it is for all students. The aim is to function in the real world but you are mostly kept away from harm during your education and therefore you can never be prepared for the harm ahead.

There were a variety of ways this conundrum was dealt with in the past. One way resulted in broken bones and scabbed knees. These days those results are questioned by medical professionals. Parents letting their children experience life are interrogated. Another way was to read of the past. For centuries great minds, who had dealt with the tragedy of real life, wrote about their experiences in graphic detail. Many of those books are now frowned upon because they tell the real story of real life.  A further way was to listen to your elders. Before the days of television, you tube or video games families would sit around tables speaking of the past. For some reason children today have been moved away from wanting to hear the stories of old.

Adolescents today are somehow supposed to grasp the hurt, pain and ruthlessness of the real world without ever having to front the issues on the training ground. Up until 2020 there was no issue getting a job or enough welfare to live. 

The question needs to be asked whether this is a problem or not. Some may say not, however others would say a society where 60% of families pay no net tax, the NDIS is overrun, mental health is out of control, suicides are increasing, there are movements to defund police and cancel the past. All this leads to the fact that many adolescents are not making the transition to adulthood.

What can be done about it?

The unfortunate thing is that only you take the jump from adolescence to adulthood, and often that must be done against the thrust of what you are being taught. 

There are a couple of things you need to keep in mind.

• Successful people fail a lot more than other people, simply because they do more.

To be successful you need to set goals and then have a plan to get to the goals. There are many ways of getting to goals, some will win others lose. You need to take a risk knowing that it may all end in tears. Without the risk there is no reward.

• A definition of a successful person is one that gets up one more time than they get knocked down.

Success is all about persistence. Quite frankly if success comes too easily then it can be just as easily taken away.

• Pain leads to gain.

While training for a sport you learn that strength and endurance doesn’t come without pain in the short term. This is also true for academic or entrepreneurial success. When you are trying to get your head around complex problems your brain can scream at you in pain. When trying to make an idea work your whole body and mind can scream out at you to stop. It is only after you have broken through that real achievements are attained. 

• Stick and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me. 

Nobody can oppress you; you can only let yourself be oppressed. If in doubt look up Jordan Peterson on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Once you have defined yourself and your values you will realise that others cannot hurt you.

• Quantitative goals are statistically more likely to be achieved than subjective goals. Write down your goals and then get a plan to achieve them.

Now you know where you are going you have to start practicing. If you are not used to taking risks then it is best to aim really high, then when you fail it won’t matter. A good example is job interviews. A good method of training for the interview and learning about risk is to apply for jobs you know you are not going to get. Write the CV, get the interview, take the interview and learn from it. Your pride hasn’t been hurt because it was a step too far anyway. If you get the job, then panic.

Physical Risk.

Having been brought up in a world where there was constant physical risk, I never understood why people wanted to jump out of planes or bungy jump. These activities are a good start to learning how to deal with physical risk, if you have never been subjected to physical risk. You need to be aware of where the danger is, so you can quantify and evaluate the risk. Remember courage is not a lack of fear it is the ability to overcome fear.

Safety Risk.

This is different to physical risk and needs a different approach. In education today there is a lot of emphasis on signage and therefore many children only perceive risk when it is signed. There is nothing like having a child to look after to open your eyes to safety risk. You start to see risks that you had never considered before. 

Financial Risk.

Over the last few decades events have happened that effect some and not others. However, 2020 showed the reality of financial risk. In my working life I have had 7 events that potentially caused financial disaster. If you work in a small business potential ruin is never far away. You need to plan for a loss of income, or a major extra expense.

Health Risk.

We are all indestructible at 30 years of age. By the time you get to 60 things are different. Remember that health issues can happen at any time for you, your partner or your children.

Legal Risk.

We live in a litigious world. Anybody can sue you for anything and you are forced to defend yourself. Not only can that ruin your reputation but it can also ruin you financially and emotionally.

Moral Risk.

We can all be tempted at anytime to cross those moral or ethical lines. We watch others cross them.

Resource Risk.

We have all sorts of resources in our lives. Some we take for granted. Those resources can drop off at anytime for many reasons, make sure you have plan B in sight.

Passive Risk.

Perhaps one of the biggest risks of all is the risk of doing nothing. Many get left behind because they will not make a decision or do not know how to make a decision. A decision to do nothing is still a decision.

Military Training – Breaking A Horse.

There are time honoured ways of training the military and breaking in horses. And while it is called breaking in the idea is not to break the will of the cadet or horse.

Coping in the real world is not easy.  Parents used to tell their children it never rains it pours, and the children have no idea what that means. So here is the heads up. Murphy was an optimist, in other words when something goes wrong it is likely many other things will go wrong at the same time.

Being able to cope in situations like that requires you to be able to handle issues in an automatic fashion. That is why the military train recruits over and over again in how to act, then they put them through strenuous physical activity until they are exhausted and then place you in front of multiple harmful situations. There is no way you can cope if you haven’t had the training. 

If your school or University is not training you, then you have to do it yourself. You start by watching Rocky 1. Once upon a time University used to teach you how to deal with extreme pressure.