We recently looked at an app that lets kids create their own games.
The founder of the Incubator School, which opened last week in Los Angeles, wants to take it up a notch from there. Already on the record telling kids to make games rather than just play them, with her new school Sujata Bhatt wants kids to build a startup around the games they create — or any other sound business idea:
Students at the Incubator School will spend the first two years (sixth and seventh grades) learning the principles of entrepreneurship before actually launching businesses in the eighth grade. It’s too early to predict what kinds of ventures the students will launch, but Bhatt exudes confidence that many students already have a natural disposition for entrepreneurship.
Teaching kids to build a business may sound exotic and cutting edge, but the truth is that our economy is rapidly changing, and nothing is evolving faster than the nature of employment. As I was just observing earlier today, encouraging technology startups may be the key to improving the employment picture. Or to put it in more stark terms, the only job that may be available in the future is the one that the student (graduate / job-seeker) creates for him- or herself.
If students do have a natural disposition for entrepreneurship — and I suspect that more do than we would realize — we need to look carefully at the environment that we are putting most kids in and ask whether it is doing anything to encourage that vital skill? My guess is that this story is more or less typical:
In elementary school, my friends and I would re-sell snacks that we purchased from Costco at a lower price than what the vending machines and lunch lady charged. Profit margins were low, but hey, making any money at that age was quite exciting.
Unfortunately, the school didn’t appreciate such “disruptive” activity. We were (partially) shut down and left with a bitter aftertaste of the school system.
The Incubator School is looking to create a different kind of environment, one where that kind of activity would be encouraged and, presumably, rewarded. Perusing their Digital Sandbox (I like that name), I observed that they are looking at gaming development systems, augmented reality, maker spaces — all the kinds of things we have been describing here as potential components of an overall shared creative space.
So there may be an interesting convergence here. In the near future, all schools might need to emulate some aspects of Incubator School, if they are going to help students develop vital life skills around creating and managing their own opportunities. To be effective in helping kids develop these skills, providing shared creative spaces may be of paramount importance.
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