Expert Opinion: Skills Your Child Needs to Become Future Ready

Learning technical skills such as robotics, indulging in experiential learning, developing soft skills, improving emotional intelligence are some of the key ingredients to succeed in this fast changing world.

According to a McKinsey report suggests 75 million to 375 million may need to switch occupational categories and learn new skills.  

So, if you are raising a child, ensure they are not limiting themselves to accumulating knowledge, but also learning skills to apply knowledge. Apart from being skilled and experienced, it is imperative for them to be emotionally intelligent too to survive in the fast changing world, which has transformed into a tech hub. 

Moonpreneur has reached out to industry experts to know their expert opinion on what skill should a child needs to become future ready.

Jonelle Erichsen-Hinchcliffe

Jonelle Erichsen-Hinchcliffe has played a diverse role as an educationist. She has been an education consultant, curriculum designer, and model teacher of mathematics at the NYC Department of Education. An experienced person, she can easily envision the must-have skills young learners need to gain at present. Speaking from her experience, she stresses inculcating emotional intelligence among children to cope with challenges thrown by the diverse world.

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Jonelle said: “As we move forward, there will be a push in workspaces for emotional intelligence. Today’s children, teens and young adults are more aware of social issues than any generation before them. There has been a massive development in the way this generation understands and communicates with and about groups of people. 

Due to social media exposure, they are hyper-aware of social justice issues, marginalized groups, and mental health awareness. Our children may be working remotely more often, but when they interact with their colleagues, there will be a demand and expectation that they do so appropriately and politically correct.”

Alok Jain

Alok Jain is the CEO and Co-founder of the Silicon Valley-based EdTech start-up Moonpreneur. He is a serial entrepreneur with four successful companies in his list of accolades. His most recent venture, Moonpreneur Inc., is disrupting the EdTech sector. An IIT-alumni, Alok’s vision is to bring about a change in the way we prepare children outside traditional classrooms. 

With the brain of an entrepreneur and the heart of a father, Alok created this company that imparts children with an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset. His sole focus currently is to secure the future of the young generation through hands-on entrepreneurial training, STEAM-based learning, and an outcome-focused approach via the Moonpreneur’s Innovator Program.

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Alok said:“Both as an individual and as a parent, I feel there are two types of people in the world. Those satisfied with the facilities they have and those who critically analyze everything and either improvise it or innovate an alternative solution for them. I belong to the latter category and the future needs people like us. 

As a parent and as an entrepreneur, I feel we should cultivate creative thinking skills, skills to empathize, the ability to foresee futuristic problems and find solutions for them in the present, articulate and communicate ideas and thoughts to the others, skills to deal with failure, flexibility, alertness, and astuteness in our children. If we equip our kids with these futuristic skills, they can enjoy their share of success in this fast-paced technological world.”

Jean Wallace

Jean Wallace has devoted decades to designing and implementing experiential learning opportunities for students. Among her many success stories is working with a team of incredible educators to create an award-winning academic program and an entire school and campus devoted to experiential learning. As a consultant, Jean welcomes the opportunity to assist others in ways to bring meaningful experiences to children. 

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Jean said: “A recent visit to a wildlife rehabilitation center in Ponce Inlet, Florida, reinforced my belief in the importance of experiential learning. Children used all of their senses: touching, observing and hearing the sights and sounds of local wildlife in various stages of rehabilitation. For these children, the wildlife they observe is all around them every day. 

Getting this close and learning how to minimize their own impact on local wildlife is an important learning experience. The essence of experiential learning is meaningful engagement. Clearly, this center is doing just that for local schoolchildren.”

Conclusion 

The demand for high-skilled workers is growing rapidly. Technological revolution has not just changed the world, it has impacted our learning process so much that traditional teaching is becoming obsolete. Therefore, it is important to adopt blended learning and upskill children to make them future ready.

Our traditional curriculum is not enough to prepare our children for the future. It’s time to shake things up to shape their future and help them learn the skills that would be in demand in the future. In short, the experts underlined the importance of practical education and its benefits.  

At Moonpreneur, educators follow a unique experiential learning approach. They offer offers students (ages 8-15) a holistic experience which is a unique blend of technical, soft, and entrepreneurial skills. It not only equips them for the future of work but also helps them stand out above the rest in college admissions.