Curiosity, Empathy, Imagination

When I started a coding school for kids ten years ago, the goal was to help kids develop technical skills so it would be much easier to learn computer science in college. I soon realised that helping kids retain that innate curiosity every child is born with is far more important than any technical skill we can teach them. 

We’ve noticed how excited kids get when they start building their own games and animations on Scratch. Kids are not excited about writing code. They are excited about what they can create with code. This is an important difference. Learning coding opens a world of possibilities for kids and allows them to express themselves creatively.

Creative expression produces great art, but to produce extraordinary results, we need empathy and imagination as well.

Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another person’s position, to imagine what it would be like to experience life from another person’s perspective. Children who develop empathy have stronger relationships with other children and educators, which helps them become better learners. They can regulate their own emotions, put themselves in someone else’s shoes, and imagine how someone might feel. As adults, empathy improves the ability to understand others, manage conflicts and lower stress. 

All of the modern-day conveniences we enjoy, from electricity to air travel to video communication, are the result of somebody's imagination. 

The ability to imagine things pervades our entire existence. The most successful figures in history had the curiosity, empathy and imagination to figure out what is it the world needs, often before users themselves can imagine what the product might look like. Henry Ford’s faster horse is a favourite example of yesteryear. Elon Musk's EV revolution at Tesla is probably the example our kids resonate with. 

Curiosity, empathy and imagination are incredibly important qualities that will set our kids up to be happy, successful adults. Unfortunately, they are not qualities valued by mainstream education, much less taught. If anything, schools, with their emphasis on standardised testing, are probably systematically killing curiosity in kids.

As parents, we need to find opportunities to help our kids stay curious, build empathy and use imagination. Kids have a blast making their ideas come alive with code. Many kids tell us it’s the most fun they have ever had in a classroom.

Too much of learning in school is rote memorisation. Through coding classes, we show kids there is a different kind of learning that involves imagination and problem-solving in order to bring their ideas to the world.

But, getting kids to learn how to code is just one of many ways to nurture curiosity, empathy and imagination. Go into nature. Explore the metaverse. The possibilities are endless.