Esther Wojcicki, educator and mother of Susan Wojcicki and Anne Wojcicki, discusses the crisis in parenting, using TRICK, journalism as a teaching tool, the importance of trust, dealing with smartphones, and making herself obsolete. She also talks about student suicides in Palo Alto, the impact of divorce, teaching purpose, and giving kids more agency.
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Quick takeaways
Trusting and empowering children is crucial for their success, as it allows them to achieve incredible things and become independent and confident individuals.
Esther Wojcicki emphasizes the importance of critical thinking, independence, and self-reflection, which helped her daughters become successful by challenging societal expectations and pursuing their own paths.
Deep dives
The Power of Trusting and Believing in Children
The podcast episode features Esther Wojcitski, an accomplished high school journalism teacher and the mother of three successful daughters. The main idea discussed is the importance of trusting and believing in children's abilities. By trusting and empowering kids, they can achieve incredible things and become successful in their own right. Esther shares her own experiences in raising her daughters and emphasizes the significance of giving kids agency, encouraging independence, and fostering collaboration. She also highlights the importance of instilling values such as respect and kindness. Esther's book, 'How to Raise Successful People,' offers useful insights for parents and anyone interested in human development.
The Impact of Personal Tragedy on Esther's Approach
Esther shares a personal tragedy that shaped her parenting philosophy. The accidental death of her brother at a young age made her realize the need to think for oneself and not blindly trust authority figures. This experience prompted her to question everything and pass down a value of critical thinking to her daughters. Esther's goal was to empower her children to challenge societal expectations and pursue their own paths. Her emphasis on independence and self-reflection helped her daughters become thinkers and questioners, eventually leading them to achieve remarkable success in their respective fields.
The TRIK Approach to Teaching and Parenting
Esther introduces the TRIK approach, an acronym that stands for trust, respect, independence, collaboration, and kindness. She applies this approach not only to parenting but also to teaching in her journalism classes. By trusting and respecting her students, giving them independence, fostering collaboration, and teaching with kindness, she empowers them to become confident, self-reliant individuals. Esther highlights the importance of allowing children to make mistakes, learn from them, and develop their own problem-solving skills. This approach encourages lifelong learning and prepares kids to face challenges with resilience and creativity.
The Need for Adaptive Parenting in a Changing World
Esther addresses the challenges of parenting in a rapidly changing world, where technology, automation, and wealth disparities have significant impacts. She stresses the importance of adapting parenting methods to help children navigate these challenges. Esther encourages parents to provide opportunities for children to exercise agency and develop critical thinking skills. She believes that fostering a creative, innovative mindset in children will enable them to thrive in an uncertain future. Moreover, she advocates for teaching children how to use technology responsibly and with self-control, while promoting open dialogue and collaborative decision-making.
The Sunday Times tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Esther Wojcicki, educator and mother of Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube, and Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23AndMe, to talk about the crisis in parenting (2:35), how her upbringing affected her approach (4:45), using TRICK (7:10), journalism as a tool to teach kids (9:55), the value of money (13:10) the coddling of children (16:50), the importance of trust (19:15), why memorisation is dumb (20:40), how to deal with the smartphone (22:05), how she feels about Youtube (27:20), student suicides in Palo Alto (30:50), why you shouldn’t get divorced (33:40), making herself obsolete (35:25), having Steve Jobs hang out at her class (37:40), how to teach purpose (41:00), how Susan started at Google (42:25), giving kids more agency (44:15), and the raising stakes (46:20).