While America debates the advantages of STEM education, and administration leaders try to focus attention on the re-animation of moribund 20th century industries, the Japanese are putting the digital age in the hands of their preschoolers.
Nursery schools in Japan are using a smartphone app called KitS to promote digital play among preschoolers. KitS, developed by Tokyo-based startup SmartEducation, lets kids color things like birds and flowers that then come alive as three-dimensional computer graphics. Using the app, children can also draw creatures that swim or float in virtual landscapes.
The goal of the program is to foster creativity, individuality, and leadership skills, seen as essential in the digital age. This is a fairly significant change for Japanese schools, which have traditionally been more structured than in the West, with students often acting in unison as they line up, bow, and chant together. Children tend to be passive, and the emphasis has been on the group rather than individuals. KitS is designed to actually nourish outspokenness.
The program has been seeing some obvious changes in the behaviors of Japanese preschoolers. Normally shy children burst into an uproar, brainstorming happily about what a triangle might represent: a sandwich, a rice ball, a dolphin, a roof, a mountain. Children are eager to show off their creations in front of the class and explain what they had drawn as the images are shown on a large screen.
Children are thinking on their own, according to Akihito Minabe, a preschool principal leading one session. “They learn it’s OK to think freely and it’s fun to come up with ideas,” Minabe said.
The University of Tokyo’s Yuhei Yamauchi says there are practical advantages to this approach. By the time today’s preschoolers enter the workforce, computer skills are expected to be basic professional requirements. Moreover, Yamauchi says in view of Japan’s shrinking population, people may work into their 80s and change jobs several times, which will make digital skills even more critical.
Some experts warn that spending too much time staring at screens can damage eyesight and may actually deter creative thinking. But they also note that children learn through play. What better device to play with in the digital age than one that teaches programming skills and delivers the equivalent of libraries and museums to a child’s fingertips.
It’s better than teaching kids how to dig for coal.
