Who’s creating our creators?
A familiar scenario for most children around the world: Family gathering. Many aunts and uncles milling around. Only a matter of time before one of them pulls a kid aside and asks, “Sweetie, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Most kids stick to safe and popular answers like doctor, teacher, and lawyer. The youngest ones will often say mommy or daddy. All answers are met with encouragement, adoration, and maybe a cheek pinch.
Recently though, career choices have changed in a big way. Survey after survey over the last 5 years has shown that YouTuber is the most aspired job for children 6 to 17 in the US (and UK). Followed by Vlogger and Podcaster. Children have caught on that they are no longer confined to traditional job descriptions. 6 out of 10 top YouTubers since 2017 have been under the age of 15!
Education itself is at the cusp of a major change. The best teachers of the future will be creators who are not bound to location and tied to school curriculums. In the same vein, our best school teachers might decide to quit traditional teaching to become full time creators in the future. The best education institutes will include virtual ones, where students and teachers are no longer restricted by physical proximity.
There is something here that requires school authorities to sit up and take notice. Our K-12 education system has not yet caught up with the needs of current and future generations. This is not surprising since innovation in education, especially at the elementary to high school level, has been slow to non-existent over the last century.
Our current education methodology is biased towards churning out rule followers and consumers of information than encouraging originality and creativity. Writing great book reports check. Learning trigonometry check. So, children who emerge out to be the YouTube stars are doing it in spite of school and not because of it. They are children who are creative, assertive, and confident. In addition they have supportive families who invest in their independence and encourage them to chart their own course.
It does not have to be that way though. We can provide a space for all children to be creators. What they need is the space to explore and build skills. Creators write their own job descriptions and then make it happen. Encouraging this mindset in all children will lead to more innovation. Think doctor-creator, lawyer-creator - wow! We don’t only have to imagine this, we already have live examples.
Sal Khan of Khan Academy and Nuseir Yassin (Nas) of Nas Daily are two brilliant creator-educators. Having attended the best and most competitive colleges, they chose off-beat careers. Sal created Khan Academy, which started as a YouTube channel and now has over 1.8 billion viewers. He also established Khan Lab School, which is an independent school with mixed-age classrooms. Nas quit his corporate job to create daily YouTube video documentaries. In 2020, Nas created Nas Academy, a school for creators to host and take classes.
Our K-12 schools system is fast becoming obsolete and irrelevant. If we don't revolutionize it soon, our public school children will suffer the consequences. They won't be prepared for the new world. Only those who attend alternative schools or have especially strong adult advocates and resources. How many future Sals or Nas would we miss out on? Let's change our K-12 curriculum. And let's ask all Aunts and Uncles to instead tell our children to create their own unique professions!
