When I joined more than 100 other women from 30 countries in a conference in Singapore recently, the topic was business, banking, and other opportunities for women as an economic force – how their gender, talents, and work contribute to a better world.

The ink was not yet dry on my recap in this space when an American educator told us at “Bulong Pulungan” at Sofitel that mothers – women – hold the key to laying a solid foundation for their children’s future, intellectually, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.

Dr. George Morrison, author, professor, and director of Success for Education at the University of North Texas, said maternal education and maternal income are important factors in developing a child’s IQ and character, just as globalization – i.e., “the ability to speak English” – and technological/technical knowledge are essential tools.

In other words, woe to the mother who’s still living in the last century! and is uneducated, jobless, or income-less, and low-tech. Ultrapatriots who think teaching English is an unnecessary burden on schoolchildren should be bound and strapped to their chairs and forced to listen to Dr. Morrison, who was here to speak at a two-day seminar on preschool education for stakeholders.

Maybe I should not have been surprised to hear him include spiritual development in a child’s character formation, but what else to call preparing a toddler for the great universe of light and shadow outside his playpen?

Another speaker at the seminar, literacy specialist Laura Benson, took the cue to remind teachers – and mothers – that “teaching thinking” to kids means teaching them how to be compassionate (taking care of others) and how to be safe (by taking care of themselves).

Fulltime adults could learn a thing or two from those children!