“Que tus acciones inspiren a los demas a soñar, aprender, y a ser mejores”

“May your actions inspire others to dream, learn, and be better”

It’s the morning of September 4, 2018 in the Colegio NWL Conference Center. I’m sitting in a room half-full of other parents. Cool Jazz playing—an event just isn’t an event without the sound of music somewhere. The smell of coffee mingles with new paint and eau-de-fresh concrete. Bright new colors cheer the room, swathed in light from the floor to ceiling windows. Slowly, more parents trickle in until the room is almost full. I estimate a hundred-plus parents.

I walk up to the front of the room to sneak a peek at the kids on the basketball court. I can see the Secundaria students spread along one of the walls, stretching. Slowly, they finish and straighten and gather around the teacher, silently lending encouragement to them, or so I imagine. I’d love to be a fly on the wall listening to what they are planning.

I’m nervous, listening to the ever-growing chatter of the Spanish spoken all around me. Still very much in the active-learning advanced-beginner, low-intermediate Spanish stage, this kind of event is a huge comprehension challenge. The screen—la pantalla—at the front of the room reads ¿Como puedes ser mamá y papá de un líder en la era digital? How to be mom and dad of a leader in the digital era? Una buena pregunta, indeed…

If nothing else, I attend to give my son support, to demonstrate my willingness to put myself outside of my comfort zone and into his shoes, to better understand his everyday experience.

The presentation gets started. Three education “consultants” from Tecnológico de Monterrey are introduced, and we are on our way. Needless to say, for the next hour and 15 minutes, I’m not following a lot of what is being said. However, I do surprise myself by being able to follow most of the event, at least in general if not the subtle nuances of the presentation.

My takeaway for the themes of the presentation?

• How to raise children to be the leaders to face the challenges of the 21st century and beyond!
• How to face and deal with rapidly accelerating technological change
• How to face and deal with challenges that haven’t even presented themselves yet
• How to lead in businesses that don’t even exist yet
• And how to create tomorrow’s technology and to use the technology that has yet to be invented

They then segued into the idea of Transformational Leadership development, where leaders raise and encourage each other to higher and higher levels of morality and motivation. This was followed by a 10-point powerpoint slide of what we can do as parents to encourage and aid our children to realize their leadership potential. To the best of my ability, this is my translated takeaway of what I understood the plan to be:

• Accompany your child in their experiences, contribute ideas, but don’t solve problems for them
• Give positive reinforcement for positive attitudes and essentially growth mindsets and the evolution of their ideas over time
• Active participation in their experiences
• Be positive and open to listening–and taking time
• Converse with your child about what they are thinking, what they are learning, and what they are going through
• Take advantage of any resources you need to aid in the learning process, even digital
• Undertake small family projects in transformational leadership and encourage opportunities of the child’s own initiative
• Permit and celebrate that our child wants to put leadership into practice and join with them
• Promote distribution of leadership roles throughout the family
• Enjoy the Journey!

Now, they may have been talking about building a rocket ship to Mars…which would pretty much fit with the themes of the talk. But, I think my translation is pretty close. Unfortunately, this was followed by a lively question and answer session of which I am absolutely positive that I understood next to nothing, except for discussion of Ecologia – the local-level government conservation and sanitation organization; the use of plastic bags at stores; city-wide garbage and recycling efforts, and…well, that’s about it. But, it sounded really good! Poco a poco aprendemos espanol, solamente ojalá pudiéramos aprender más rápido….

Overall, I was encouraged by the presentation, the professionalism of the presenters, and the school staff. I liked the emphasis not only on the view to the future but on the idea of facing and dealing with an unknown future and those things that have yet to exist. Very forward thinking. I was equally encouraged by the number of parents that attended, and I really loved seeing the number of couples and solo fathers that participated. Time will tell how these aspirations are implemented, but I liked hearing that they have aspirations and lofty ones at that.