One of the most far-reaching changes we can make for our children and their future is to establish entrepreneurial life skills as a core competence for all students, beginning as early as kindergarten and continuing through high school. This is especially true for girls, who suffer from gender bias in many ways.
When girls are introduced to, and begin to develop, entrepreneurial skills at a young age, their brains expand and form new neural synapses in response to challenges and problems.
The girls become accustomed to meeting challenges.
They learn to employ what Jonathan Mugan calls “the curiosity cycle” in his book of that name. Mugan explores how parents and educators can teach their children to be active explorers of the world, develop adaptive thinking and be prepared to use technology in the most effective way.
Learning through curiosity leads to adaptive thinking because your child is continually trying to improve his or her understanding of the world, and new facts and ideas become embedded in the knowledge that your child already has. A “curiosity cycle” means building foundations of knowledge on which children can expand as they follow their curiosity. Children learn what it takes to achieve mastery in any field. They learn to become creators and builders and entrepreneurs.
We need, for our part, to make a concerted effort to engage girls in learning about entrepreneurial skills and the scientific and technological know-how that support those skills.
Programs that stimulate girls’ creativity and enterprise vividly illustrate what can happen when restrictive stereotypes are shattered. “Young girls are change agents,” says Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, an organization that has brought relevant computer-science experiences into the lives of tens of thousands of girls nationwide, inspiring many of them to pursue studies in technology and engineering. Saujani has seen girls who’ve been introduced to entrepreneurial possibilities grow into women who want to drive change: “They look at the world and ask, how can I make it better?”
Taking what Saujani has proposed, I will offer, over the next several blogs, tips for helping to kick-start an entrepreneurial spirit in girls.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about building curiosity in girls, and how you’ve done it with the girls in your life. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate your comments.
