There is an old joke: “As we get older, three things happen. First, our memory goes. Second, … I can’t remember the other two.” Have we ever felt like that? Have we forgotten things, important things at that? Children are very good at forgetting things! Perhaps it comes naturally and we have to train them out of it. They forget their pencils for school, their packed lunch (disaster, in their minds), their homework (and blame it on the dog eating it) and even rules. Yes, they forget things, alright.

What about us though? And what about us in education (which is not just teachers, coaches, policy makers, inspectors, trainers, but also parents, remember) – do we forget anything? We are very focused nowadays, in our thinking, on education, on results, data, AI, sustainability, systems, infrastructure, STEM, innovation, safeguarding, heritage; they are all important things, worthy of our attention and even study. However, there is a very real danger that in our focusing on those things we are forgetting something far more important. People. Children.

It may sound ridiculous, extraordinary even, to suggest it but we are seriously in danger of forgetting that education is all about children. While we ponder on data, AI, sustainability, systems, infrastructure, STEM, innovation and so on, let us not forget that it is young people we are working for, young people with hopes and fears, dreams and feelings. And ultimately, because it is all about people (plural, not isolated individuals), it is about ubuntu. The role of education is to develop better people, people who will contribute and enhance society. It is not to develop better mathematicians or scientists or sportsmen but better people.

In our drive towards all those policies and procedures that we spend hours discussing and developing, we tend often to forget the whole person. We love to train the brain, to push the academics, yet in doing so we are not caring for the whole child, made up of body, mind and soul. We ignore for the most part (and we adults only prove it in our own lives) the importance of sport in a child’s development; we play lip service to the many opportunities and possibilities of cultural development; we all but ignore the spiritual aspect of their lives, thinking we should leave that to churches (if they go); and above all, we forget that the real reason they go to school is the social development of the children, their mental and emotional intelligence, in learning about responsibility, service, leadership, so they can take their wholesome place in society.

Furthermore, in our quest for results, we are forgetting values, as a result of which we are in danger of producing clever criminals, people who are smart enough to know how to beat the system. We need a Values-Based Curriculum. They need to learn integrity. We need to develop such values as Humility, Empathy, Authenticity, Respect and Trust, the first letters of which spell ‘HEART’ – heart is what they need, for as we all most likely will remember “Man looks at the outward appearance (results, degrees, wealth) but God looks at the heart”. It seems we think we know better than God!

Parents demand and schools reward, as we have noted before, three A*s yet the three A*s we should be developing (which employers want) are Accountability, Availability and Adaptability. Those are values to die for. In placing the high priority on academic results, we are forgetting our children’s future, where they need to find their purpose (not a career but a calling) by being principled (not programmed) complete with suitable perspective (understanding what is important and significant). Their past, their heritage, may indeed be important but their future stands out as being critical.

In forgetting their future, we are also forgetting (or perhaps even ignoring) key principles. As in sport, with the three Gs, where we have to enable players to Get in a position to Get the ball before they then Give the ball and thereafter Go for the return, so the same principles should be applied to life, where they need to understand the importance of getting in position to receive what is given before they learn to pass it on to others and then look to do more. Furthermore, we should add the word ‘fore’ to those three Gs and let the children learn the advanced level course of Forget (the inevitable failures), Forgive (the inexorable perpetrators) and Forego (the alluring attractions). So, please, in thinking of educating children, forget this writer, yes – but forget them not.