At Saturday Kids, we offer courses for kids between 5-14, but I work mostly with kids under 10. Last week I got the chance to conduct our Marvellous Machines and Mechanisms course with 3 boys aged 11-13 years old—the experimental preteen stage! Sure, I’ve been there, but being a preteen in a world today might be very different from a decade ago.

Before the class, I wondered about what their world might be like, whether we would be able to connect and if we would share any likes or dislikes. What sort of games do they play? What are they interested in learning and doing?

It turns out that curiosity was our common ground. I was curious about their world, and they were curious about mechanisms.

I started with the usual questions– their favourite games (Risk, Fortnite, Minecraft), what they wanted to be when they grew up (pilot, doctor, engineer). Then I moved on to the more profound questions.

In between figuring out how to build a drawbridge with motors and sensors, I asked them what would be the first thing they changed if they became the principal of their school. Two of them said they would make recess 30 minutes instead of 20. Sounds reasonable. Another said that they would let students decide what they want to learn, like in university where students get to pick their modules. The others agreed. They know what they like, and wished they had more dedicated time to focus on it.

The next day while we figured how to build a light-activated umbrella, I threw them another question – did they think that people of all genders were treated equally in this society?

In the brief silence that followed, I thought my question was going to be dismissed with a shrug. Then one of them offered that in their school, he felt that everyone was treated equally, but in society today, men are paid a lot more than women. He then proceeded to search up a graph that detailed the gender wage gap across several countries. Unfortunately, during the week we spent together, we did not get the chance to continue this conversation.

Granted, this barely hinted at the issue of equity, equality and equitability, and there is a lot more to unpack. But to know that they were aware of some of the problems in society today gave me so much hope for the future we are working towards.

PS: Check out what they made together in class – an automated ball run constructed with Strawbees. The Quirkbot (a microcontroller) and servo motor are programmed to lift a ping pong ball to the start of the track, and are timed in such a way that it drops to pick up the ball at the end and restarts the ball run again!

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How might we prepare kids for healthy, happy, successful lives in an age of disruption?

There’s not much we know about the future – with the current public health situation, we feel this now more than ever – but we do know that change is coming with the digital revolution. And while we can’t be sure of what the future will look like, we can be sure that kids will see a lot more change in their lifetimes than their parents did in theirs.

The role of any parent or educator really boils down to preparing kids to live healthy, happy, successful lives. I believe our children already have the power in themselves to do this – we just need to provide an environment where they can flourish. What do I mean, and what could this look like?

We need to celebrate the 100 languages in each child.

Image credit: Linda Liukas

The 100 Languages is a poem by the founder of Reggio Emilia – an approach that revolutionises education by putting kids at the centre of their learning. 

The poem illustrates the extraordinary potential of children and the responsibility of adults’ to encourage or limit it. For many of us adults, curiosity depletes and our dreams shrink. But we need to believe our children when they tell us: the hundred is there.

As educators, we get to celebrate how kids are made of 100 every day. We’ve seen through our work at Saturday Kids that if we give kids enough space – they will surprise themselves, and us too. I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve heard stories from parents about times when their child stayed up late to work on their coding projects unprompted, or woke up extra early of their own accord because they were excited to get to class.

Because curiosity changes the world – here’s how:

I believe that as soon as we give kids the permission to be curious, to explore, and believe it’s ok to fail – it unleashes a superpower from within that ripples out to the world.

When we ran Coding Cats – a USAID sponsored pilot to run free coding classes for Cambodian kids in Phnom Penh – we asked our young applicants why they wanted to learn how to code. Many of them said that they wanted to make positive change and contribute to Cambodia’s development. 

As adults, we need to do everything we can to help give children learning experiences that can catalyse positive change.

If we plant the seeds of curiosity while kids are young, future generations and the rest of the world will reap the rewards in the future to come.

To any parents or educators reading this, I have this request:

Build a culture of asking “why” and “how” at home. Encourage your kids to be observant about the world around them. Help your child notice what problems people are facing, and to imagine what they can to improve their lives. 

If you have these discussions with your kids on a regular basis, you might be amazed with what your kids will come up with.

Curiosity is a powerful superpower when nurtured from a young age, and that’s what will empower our young ones to create transformational change for the world.

Once again, let’s all remember to listen to our children when they tell us that the hundred is there.

. . .

At Saturday Kids, we’re on a mission to transform every child into a curious, self-directed learner. Check out our creative coding camps for kids ages 5-14, designed to keep kids curious, inventive, and resourceful.

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Walking through the woods of Karuizawa is a great way to slow down, take a step back from moving from task to task, and think about stuff.

What came to my mind when I was walking in the forest behind Hoshinoya is this question – the purpose of education. Schools were invented at the turn of the 20th century to churn out young adults with sufficient knowledge to work in factories. This knowledge-based education model survived more than a hundred years and even today, a large part of mainstream education is about knowledge. In the last decade, there has been a growing emphasis on skill-based education – equipping students with the skills to be successful. Perhaps why there are so many coding schools for kids popping up everywhere. Even adults are being told to upskill and reskill. The Singapore government’s SkillsFuture initiative is exhibit #1.

While skills are important, I believe the next evolution of education will shift focus from skills to mindset.

More precisely, the mindset of being curious, asking questions, and being a lifelong learner. The world is evolving too fast for any education system to keep up. That is why a skill-based education model will not work. Nobody knows what skills our kids will need in 2050. The only way to prepare for an unknown future is to stay curious, be resilient, and keep learning. As Noah Yuval Harari puts it, “To stay relevant   you will need the ability to constantly learn and to reinvent yourself. To keep up with the world of 2050, you will need to do more than merely invent new ideas and products, but above all, reinvent yourself again and again.”

The job of educators in a world where learning is about mindset rather than skills or knowledge is to first and foremost inspire curiosity. We should encourage kids to learn through play and to become self-directed learners. Second, we need to get kids to see the world with a wider lens. Help them understand they live a sheltered life and that there’s a whole world out there for them to discover, that humanity is running out of time to solve some of the biggest issues we are facing. Climate change for example. Third, educators need to give kids the creative confidence to be able to solve any problem they set their heart on.

Singapore – or the world, for that matter – doesn’t need more lawyers and bankers. We need our kids to be mavericks, to be original thinkers. The world has many problems we need our kids to solve, and equipping them with the mindset and confidence to solve those problems is key. 

What we’re trying to do through Saturday Kids Unplugged is give kids the space to develop that sensitivity and awareness to the world beyond themselves, and to cultivate the innate curiosity that they’ll need to tackle the world’s wicked problems.

My kids had a great time going unplugged in Karuizawa during the camp – catching (and releasing) tadpoles, making new friends, and learning about their place in the great outdoors – and I believe the other kids who joined us did too.

If what I’ve shared resonates, here are a few things you can do. Embrace our philosophy of getting your child curious, give your child the time and space to learn through play. Second, tell your friends about us – who we are, and more importantly, what we stand for. Third, get your friends to sign up for the same camp next year. We want to bring hundreds of kids from Singapore to Karuizawa, not just because they’ll have a great time but also because they’ll benefit so much from the experience of being outdoors and learning through nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson has this great quote. Trust thyself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string. For Emerson, the task of every human being was to find his or her voice and give expression to it. He believed in the importance of authenticity and unique thinking. Let’s help our kids work towards higher order ambitions than simply better grades. Let’s help them become mavericks and original thinkers. The world needs it.

…

John originally delivered this as a closing speech at our very first Saturday Kids Unplugged Summer Camp in Japan in June 2019. Keen to join us at the next one, or just curious about what this looks like? Find out more here! 

Check out more of our #postcardsfromKaruizawa:

• Gone unplugged: Reflections from our summer outdoors
• What kids learn from the outdoors, and why we’re going unplugged

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Sophea, a student from E2STEM presenting his project, Racing Car

Over 60% of them hadn’t used a computer before, few of them had prior exposure to coding, and we were astonished to find out that one of them travelled from her province, 1.5 hours from the city to get to class (which began at 8.30am) every Saturday morning. Given all this, we couldn’t be prouder of the students who graduated from the programme with creative Scratch projects they made, well, from Scratch; many of the other participants found it difficult to juggle multiple commitments and extra classes, which only underscores the point that kids everywhere are over-scheduled.

At the graduation party, instructor Kosoma – who also manages Communications at Impact Hub Phnom Penh – gave an impassioned speech about the challenges she experienced as a child growing up in Cambodia, and about the need to keep kids curious. Her story reminded us why we do what we do – we think it might resonate with you too, and so we’re sharing her words here:

“As a student, there are 3 main challenges I faced that perhaps also represent the challenges faced by other students in Cambodia, and that we hoped to address through Coding Cats:

1.  Curiosity is stopped at childhood.

When I was young, I was known as a curious kid who always asked a lot of questions. However, the most common answer I’d get from my parents was “You are so young. You don’t have to know this yet. When you grow up, you will learn.”

So eventually I stopped asking; I stopped being curious, and I stopped trying to find the answers  – because I expected that I would know them one day.

Right now, I have a nephew – also a curious 4 year old kid! When my sister’s busy, I often hear her respond to him, “Vong Vong (that’s his name)! Mom is busy. Can you stop asking?” This might sound a little rude in English but it comes across pretty typically in Khmer, I guess because we hear these sentences often from our parents. Personally, I think these are the little things we don’t notice every day that kill the curiosity of our kids.

2. Equating grades with success.
   

When I was young, my mom promised that if my grades were within the top 5 in my class, she would get me a pencil case. It was considered fancy to own one back then!

I didn’t care about why I really needed to study – I studied for my pencil case, and then for a fancy bag, a trendy pair of shoes, and a bicycle. To my parents, being within the top 5 in my class meant success in life; to me, being within the top 5 in my class meant winning a fancy pencil case.

3. Moving through the system without direction.

This mindset I learned led me to perceive the goal of education in differently, shaped by our education system.

I was expected to progress from Grade 1 to Grade 2, to pass the big standardised test in Grade 9 to jump into Grade 12, and then apply to university straight away – despite not knowing what I wanted to study.

Because of these social pressures and expectations, I’d told myself to just study first, and so the cycle continued.

In my country, the education system is about moving from teacher to teacher, from one subject to another, from Grade 1 to Grade 2; it doesn’t seem to give students the chance or space to get to know themselves, try something new, be curious and creative, or choose the path they want. But I believe it’s these experiences that will teach children the practical and essential skills they need to solve the world’s problems.

Learning to code aside, through Coding Cats we’re teaching students to respond to these challenges, through developing the courage to try new things, critical thinking, and creativity and imagination.”

What’s education for? At Saturday Kids, we believe education should enable kids to dream bigger, connect the dots, and make the world a better place, and with the help of our awesome team of Papa and Mama Cats – Thearith, Bunrong, Arky, Dalya, Thyka, Kama, Voneat, Rithykol, Ladang, Vantharith, Cheangy, Rasmey, Manith, Sovichet, and Kosoma – and the support of our partner Raintree Cambodia and funder Development Innovations, we’re hopeful that we’ve taken baby steps towards doing just that.

…

This is just the start of Saturday Kids’ digital literacy adventure in Cambodia to cultivate kids’ problem-solving, creative, and critical thinking skills through coding! Curious about what’s next? Stay tuned for more stories and updates coming soon, and check out our previous postcard about what learned during our previous recce fieldtrip to Phnom Penh.

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I was invited to a dialogue session with Minister of Education Ong Ye Kung last week and had the opportunity to listen to the concerns of other parents and ask questions myself. As this was a close door session, it’s not my place to share what was discussed. Rather, I want to share my thoughts about the future of education in Singapore after attending the dialogue.

Going into the session, my deeply held view is that our current system – with its emphasis on test scores, and tuition consuming our children’s personal time – is woefully inadequate at promoting curiosity and the joy of learning. We need to rethink our education system, putting curiosity at the core.

I remember going through the system as a child, learning to excel at memorising facts and exam answering techniques, getting into the best schools, basically doing everything expected of a good kid who studies hard. Looking back at that journey now, I dare say beyond giving me reading, writing and basic arithmetic skills, very few of the things I learnt in school from age 7-18 really prepared me for adulthood and working life.

Most of the things I know today, I learnt from my love for reading. I read fiction and non-fiction. I read about technology, and also culture. I read books, newspapers, magazines, essays, blog posts. When I discovered podcasts and audiobooks, I started consuming content through my headphones. In other words, I am insatiably curious about the world around me. That has served me well. I believe human beings, regardless of age, learn best by being curious. When I speak to people individually or in small groups, I tell them Saturday Kids is a curiosity school for kids. Our mission is to make kids self-motivated learners who are curious, inventive and resourceful. It’s just so much easier for parents to understand coding school for kids.

The theme of the dialogue session with Minister Ong revolved around the incessant pressure Singapore kids are under to do well in standardised tests and exams. As I shared above, I have strong views about the shortcomings of the Singapore system. I did not expect the dialogue to change my views, but change it did. Minister Ong clearly gets that students are under a lot of pressure and that things don’t have to be that way. This is an important starting point. In order to fix something you need to know what needs fixing. My sense is that the Minister is genuinely concerned about the well-being of students, and the importance of helping children discover the joy of learning. MOE, like most other government ministries in the world, is a machine. It takes time for ideas to course through, and even more time for changes to be effected.

Instead of sitting back and waiting for the system to change, we can do our bit. Parents: beyond school and tuition, reflect on your own learning journeys and formative experiences, and consider an out-of-the-box approach to learning for your child. Employers: take a chance on the candidate who lacks a college degree but is driven and hungry. Teachers: put the curiosity back into kids by using creative means to make learning fun again.

Having attended the dialogue, I am feeling a lot more hopeful about the future of education in Singapore. Let’s not sit back and wait for changes to come from top down. We can all do our bit to bring forward the changes we want to see.

Because Singapore matters.

Big thanks to Straits Clan and Life Beyond Grades for organising the dialogue session.

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