I have lost count of the number of conversations in which I have participated that concern what young children should be learning during their virtual learning experience. How much do we focus on a curriculum? Or is simply living through the experience its own lesson? Is this the time parents should travel and expose them to the wider world? Should they be learning the skills they usually do not in school such as languages or musical instruments? And the list goes on.
I keep coming back to the old saying about “everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten”: kindness, gratitude, listening, cooperation, basic manners, etc. . . Perhaps because it is difficult for any of us to learn these things virtually, so they need more intentionality behind them.
One of the On Being episodes interviewed Tiffany Shlain, in which she spoke about the five traits needed to flourish in the emerging “human economy”: curiosity, creativity, initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking and empathy. These are not new traits, but they do have new applications, because our economy – the management of our resources – has changed. Not only have our resources changed, but so has our understanding of management, now more cooperative and influential than hierarchical and commanding.
Some of the biggest questions in life have to do with the five traits Shlain says are necessary for our flourishing. How do we cultivate curiosity? How do we create space for being (in all its various meanings)? How do we overcome loneliness created by overuse of technology – a use that is usually motivated by the desire to be connected? How do we re-learn the art of the argument and recapture the value of compromise? How can we float ideas in an environment where our every word is captured, lifted, and judged?
Clearly, these are big questions, but I believe they find their roots in the basic ideas of kindness, goodness, compassion, cooperation and others we all begin learning when we are very young. Maybe in teaching our kids these things, we are reminded of them ourselves? Maybe then we can begin to tackle the even bigger questions? Maybe.
And while we are thinking about this, may I recommend Shlain’s short video on the five traits: