We call ourselves design thinking for kids. And everyone wants to help us train people and volunteers to train the kids - that’s not design thinking for kids, that’s designing thinking for adults to help kids learn design thinking. We autentically want to create products, training, and services that will directly be used by the youth in their creation and learning process. It’s crazy that we have to be extra careful about this idea of being user-centric when we talk about kids. Here’s a healthy thought experiment.

If I told people that I teach people to use design thinking in their daily lives/practice, people would understand and naturally ask who I serve? If I told them startup founders, they would say, oh that’s great! If I said emerging adults looking for careers in tech, people would say oh that’s great! If I said elderly or refugees in Syria, people would say oh that’s great! And in all cases, people would assume that they take these skills via myself directly or via a facilitator. The moment I say I teach kids to use design thinking, they say … Ohhh… that’s just so great and assume that I train facilators to teach kids design thinking as an abstract. A. They don’t think kids can practice design thinking in their day-to-day lives. B. That kids are still developing and cannot understand design thinking hence materials must be created for adults to serve kids… this is discrimination, not educational beliefs! We have to fight this with proof and action. Ie. even when I look at Design for Change in India, I sit and think, how the hell are these kids supposed to do these projects they’ve posted online… no chance. Even design thinking orgs, stop their and claim practice… robbing children of their agency and natural right to create and share. We must do better.