Critical thinking and historical perspective on how we’ve gotten where we are are timeless things. Someone who knows how to observe, think, ask question, and form hypotheses and test them is going to be well equipped for most things that come her way. Someone who knows how to dig into data (of any kind) with some depth, rather than cruise to Wikipedia and take notes, is going to be a bigger asset in any organization than the peer who’s wired to the max but not a great thinker.

What is most striking to me about education is that the way people were taught in the past often seems better than what’s going on now. One of the best thinkers I know (my partner) got a classic education (liberal arts and hard science together) before going off into graduate work, and easily moved from being a scientist to a software product manager. He knows how to think.

Technology can, if anything, distract from that.

Listening
Treating others humanely
Stopping to think
Being willing to imagine wildly
Asking questions, finding out more, and then asking more and better questions.

Et cetera. When I’m at my best, my own focus with my kids is on these long-duration skills. I figure they’ll learn their tech (etc.) chops on the fly, based on whatever the current need is.

I hardly need to tell you that working from home is a *huge* benefit in exposing your children to your own ways of using deep, long-run human skills.