Education is an important part of growing up, and it is something that many countries see as investments in themselves. A well-informed population capable of thinking critically is usually a good thing – provided you are not a tyrannical government that would not benefit from a free-thinking people. Often, the education received in one’s childhood molds much of the rest of one’s life. I’m proposing that we start kids off early by not only teaching better personal finance habits, but also lessons about blockchain technology itself.
We should be teaching kids the language of the future: Blockchain
We expect a lot of children, and that’s not just because they are “the future,” but also because their capacity for learning is incredible. I, as a mid-twenty-something man, find myself envying the ease with which children pick up multiple languages and new concepts. Alas, it makes me wish I was pushed to learn more languages as a child.
Children around the world have had more languages implemented in their curriculums earlier on, and some even are learning to code as well. Learning more languages and being introduced to coding as a younger person are all good things, but I think we should consider adding blockchain technology into the mix.
I envision a sort of two-step approach: Blockchain technology and blockchain finance.
Blockchain technology
While I have argued in the past that it is not necessary to understand how something works to use it – pretty much no one using fiat currency has any idea how it is generated or distributed – I think that as blockchain technology has implications beyond the financial world, it would be a good idea to familiarize more people with the concept. Introducing it into school curriculums would be an effective way to do that. If we could start seeding a future where people were as blockchain literate as they were with books and essays, think about the additional innovation that we could see. Rather than rely on the guarded knowledge of an elite few, we would benefit from more people potentially contributing to blockchain projects on all levels.
Blockchain finance
As I mentioned, there is more to blockchain than finance. However, the United States in particular could benefit from a more financially literate population. Currently, about two-thirds of Americans cannot pass a basic financial literacy test. That is unacceptable.
However, incorporating blockchain finance into lessons for schoolchildren could help them to be more responsible with money. I realize that blockchain finance can be very complex, but simpler lessons could be developed for children. The lesson of “you can’t spend what you don’t have” and “you can’t double spend” could be particularly helpful. Who knows, even the “this may be worth more tomorrow, so do you really need to spend it on [insert unnecessary item here] today?” may be a valuable lesson to impart.
