Day 13 — Shifting My Perspective
How might we teach kids to become problem-solvers?
It was 2007 and it was almost 1 year to the day since I’d been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. And I had just been carried to the University of Michigan Hospital Emergency Room by 3 of my closest friends.
I was in Diabetic Keto-Acidosis (DKA).
The prior 3 days leading to my hospitalization was a comedy of errors: not taking my insulin, stress-eating Swedish Fish in the library while studying for finals, and drinking Powerades while mistaking DKA for the flu.
While in the hospital, I saw first-hand the impact my decision had on me and those around me. I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face when he showed up at the hospital.
I’m forever grateful to my friends who were there for me that day, and also for the lessons taught to me by experiencing the potential worst. This hospital visit became a seminal moment in my life. It was the day I decided to take ownership.
So when the opportunity to teach kids emerged from interviews with parents and healthcare providers, I jumped at the opportunity.
Challenging our approach
This week I’ve reflected a lot about how we might teach kids. So far, we’ve built a really fun approach to skill-building in our app, combining Duolingo’s bite-sized lessons and real video content to help bring it to life.
But one thought loomed: is it enough? If 19-year old me had this app, would I have avoided my trip to the hospital?
Shifting from knowledge-building to problem-solving
Kids with a chronic health issue face a daily barrage of challenges related to their health. For me, no 2 days are the same, and the longer I live with it, the more I realize how complex the body really is.
But I’m able to live with type 1 not because I have memorized all the facts. Instead, I’ve become an excellent problem solver. I’ve adopted the approach and mindset to address whatever comes my way.
I came across this book and was excited to learn from the creator of LeapFrog how he approached teaching his own kids.
I really loved the author’s approach toward stimulating problem-solving and creativity in his children. Rather than trying to teach them everything they possibly needed to know, he taught them a framework that would prove useful for any situation. He equipped his kids with tools to approach any of life’s challenges with confidence by teaching them how to focus on the problem to solve and focusing on the why, how, and what for any problem.
Starting with Why
One of the things that I believe is missing from our existing training is a hook — a reason kids should get interested. We’re testing lots of ideas to make this work — storytelling, gamification, etc. — but perhaps we’re missing a ‘why’ that truly matters to kids?
For 19-year old me, my why would have been that I didn’t want type 1 diabetes to define me or stop me from doing anything.
Teaching to Overcome the Impossible
When you’re diagnosed with a chronic health issue, there are times when everything seems hopeless. How might we teach kids to ‘embrace the nemesis’? How might we teach kids to remove “can’t” and “impossible” from their vocabulary?
Building Confidence
Building confidence for kids is an inevitable step toward teaching them skills to manage their health issue.
Some problems to solve:
- How might we help kids build skills over time?
- How might we help kids be accountable for failures?
- How might we give space for kids to fail?
- How might we help kids own their own outcome?
- How might we remove ‘that’s not fair’ from thinking?
What Now?
Well, today has me thinking about what problem we’re really solving. Are we teaching kids skills, or are we really teaching them to become problem-solvers?
This week, I’ll be iterating on some ideas based on the learnings here and others I’ve discovered in my research. It’s time to help kids become excellent problems solvers so they can live out their own why’s.
Until tomorrow.
