Empowering Our Children: The Importance of Design Thinking for Kids.
When we think of design thinking, we often associate it with creative fields like architecture, graphic design, or product development. However, design thinking is much more than aesthetics; it’s a powerful problem-solving approach that can be applied to everyday life. In this blog, I’ll share why design thinking is vital for our children’s cognitive development and how it can help them navigate life’s challenges with ease and confidence.
Understanding Design Thinking:
Design thinking is a mindset that encourages innovation, critical thinking, and empathy. At its core, it involves identifying problems, understanding the needs of those affected, brainstorming solutions, prototyping, and refining the solution. By fostering this way of thinking in our children, we can equip them with the skills to navigate the ever-changing world with confidence and resilience.
A Tale of two children:
Scenario 1 : There is this boy called Vishankh. Both his parents are software engineers drawing a 6 figure salary. He studies in an elite school in class 1. Since he is an only child, he gets pampered a lot by his parents and grandparents.
One day as usual Vishankh’s mom dropped him at school and wished him best for his exam that day. He entered his classroom and sat on his designated seat which happened to be on the first row in his class. His teacher gave him the question paper and she moved forward to distribute the paper to the other students. After a while the teacher heard some one crying from the front rows and she immediately rushed and saw Vishankh crying out loud and asked him what’s bothering him to cry? Sobbing Vishankh told the teacher that he forgot his compass box which has all his stationary like pencils, sharpener etc., and teacher calms him and asks the class for an extra pencil and eraser for Vishankh. After some time he starts writing his exam.
Scenario 2 : In a parallel world there is another boy Ramu who is in Class 1 in a Government school. He has 4 siblings. His parents are daily wage workers and he has a struggling childhood with an alcoholic and abusive father.
This boy also has exam on the same day. As he went to the classroom and searched thoroughly in his bag for his only pencil. He couldn’t find his pencil which was in fact stolen by one of his siblings. He now knows he has no pencil to write the exam but he didn’t cry instead he spontaneously asked his classmate if he can borrow an extra pencil saying he will return it after the exam. One of his friend offers him a small pencil and he begins his exam.
We can understand with these examples why Ramu was proactive in finding a solution or rather is smarter than Vishankh in facing minor obstacle.
What made Ramu smart here is his thought process and can Vishankh also be smart just like Ramu? The answer is YES. If the question now is how- it’s through design thinking..
The Stuck Truck Story:
I want to share something that I read from IxDF (Interaction Design Foundation) that made me pause and ponder on. You can find the full story in their “Design thinking” course but I will summarise it for everyone.
The context of this story is a scenario of a heavy loaded truck which tried to pass by a underbridge and got stuck there with no way to get out from either side. A team of experts have come to solve this problem and make the truck move out because it caused a heavy traffic jam that is causing a lot of inconvenience. The experts came up with a lot ideas but none of them actually worked. A very young boy who is near this spot says “Why don’t we inflate the tires and push the truck out of the bridge”. When the solution was tested the truck was able to pass out of the bridge with the initial damage that was caused.
This is a simple solution to a complex problem that people with many degrees and experiences have failed to address because our decision making is highly influenced by what we have learnt and experienced before while the young boy had a fresh perspective. In crux the story is that most of the solutions to our problems are simple but we make difficult choices because of the self imposed constraints we work with.
Conclusion:
By design thinking workshops we can make children explore their thinking capacity and solve their own problems and some people may disagree with me do children really need this? Aren’t we stealing their childhood by all this stuff? Why can’t they grow the way they are growing? Absolutely yes- but what if we work on their cognitive thinking ability without confining it to learn-by-heart stuff at school. What if their thought process is good and they can take their own decisions, what if he is ready with every challenge whatsoever comes his way, what if he never gets into depression or suicidal thoughts because of minor inconveniences?
So let’s encourage our children to think creatively and to approach problems with an open mind. Let’s foster their natural curiosity and help them develop the skills they need to succeed in life. Design thinking is not just a concept, it’s a way of life that can help children become the best versions of themselves.
