Qi Skills for 21st Century

Overview

This presentation examines the "Qi" (key) skills children need for 21st-century success, complementing traditional IQ skills. Research shows 85% of brain growth occurs by age 3, making early childhood critical for developing social, creative, and adaptive abilities that employers increasingly value.

The Seven Key Skills

Early Brain Development

• 85% of brain growth occurs by age 3, with up to one million neural connections forming per second.
• First five years offer unique opportunity to intentionally build foundational skills children will need.
• Brain wiring analogy: Rewiring an old house costs more and yields poorer results than wiring before walls go up.
• Caring, responsive adults serve as "chief architects" in building babies' brain connections.
• Social interactions are essential; neurons don't connect and babies don't learn independently.

Context: 21st Century Skills

• World Economic Forum (2016) identified skills most valued in today's complex, globalized world.
• Two-thirds of current children will work in jobs that don't yet exist.
• Traditional "hard skills" (reading, writing, arithmetic) comprise only one-third of essential skills.
• Other two-thirds include social, creative, and adaptive abilities previously called "soft" or "non-cognitive" skills.
• Emotional intelligence (Me + We skills) recognized as critical for thriving in 21st-century life.

Me Skills: Self-Management

• Executive function skills develop most rapidly between ages 3 and 5.
• Impulse control one of three defining features of executive function identified by neuroscientists.
• Peter Drucker predicted 21st century as "era of self-management" versus 20th century business management era.
• Practical application in toddlers: Not biting friends demonstrates developing impulse control.
• Corporate culture increasingly values mindfulness, reflected in mindfulness apps and chief mindfulness officers.

We Skills: Social Intelligence

• Include communication, collaboration, teamwork, active listening, empathy, and perspective-taking.
• Preschool phrases translate to valued workplace skills: "Use your words," "Play nice with others."
• Nine-month-old infants begin showing signs of empathy.
• Very young infants are sensitive emotion detectors before they can walk or talk.
• Toddlers can be taught to understand other people's perspectives.
• As important to read other people as it is to read text in modern world.

Why Skills: Curiosity

• Include asking "why" plus broader exploration, curiosity, and inquisitiveness.
• Information Age makes asking good questions more valuable than knowing right answers.
• Corporate training programs like "Five Whys" teach business leaders questioning techniques natural to toddlers.
• Albert Einstein emphasized importance of never stopping questioning.
• Natural for young children to question their world; adults must avoid squelching this tendency.
• Encouraging children's natural sense of wonder helps them continue seeing world as question mark.

Will Skills: Motivation

• Include drive, determination, grit, perseverance, and "get the job done" attitudes.
• Two types of motivation: extrinsic (rewards/punishments) and intrinsic (internal drive).
• Extrinsic motivation may work short-term for simple tasks but kills creativity long-term.
• Self-motivation (intrinsic) comes from within and is what truly matters for complex 21st-century challenges.
• Routine tasks (brushing teeth, potty training) should be rewarded with praise/pride rather than sweets/treats.

Wiggle Skills: Active Learning

• Physical and intellectual restlessness go hand in hand for learning.
• Successful adults described as "movers and shakers," "go-getters" who "reach for the stars."
• Innovation literature consistently describes innovators as physically restless.
• Workplaces incorporate walking meetings, treadmill desks, and manipulatives to enhance thinking and creativity.
• Young children often negatively labeled as "fidgety," "antsy," or "restless" for same behaviors.
• Children learn by physically interacting with world, not by sitting still.
• Adults should help children put their wiggles to work rather than suppress them.

Wobble Skills: Resilience

• Defined by agility, adaptability, and ability to face, overcome, and learn from failure.
• Name derived from "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down" toy reference.
• College applications and job interviews routinely ask candidates about failures and responses.
• Silicon Valley motto: "Fail early, fail often, and fail forward."
• Developmental milestones only represent successes, not failures, which limits resilience focus.
• Need to celebrate children's ability to fall down, brush themselves off, and get back up.

What If Skills: Creativity

• Include innovation, imagination, creativity, and out-of-the-box thinking.
• Allow imagining world not just as it is but as it could be.
• Global CEO survey (1,500+ participants) identified creativity as single most important factor for future success.
• Young children excel at imagining new worlds through make-believe, superheroes, and imaginary friends.
• Peter Diamandis calls young children "some of the most imaginative humans around."
• Risk: Teaching children how we see world may convince them there's only one right way.
• Jean Piaget's question: Should we form children capable only of learning what's known, or develop creative minds capable of lifelong discovery?

Key Terms & Definitions

• Qi (Key) Skills: Non-traditional skills (social, creative, adaptive) that complement IQ skills; pronounced like "key."
• IQ Skills: Traditional hard skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
• Executive Function: Brain-based skills including impulse control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility.
• Emotional Intelligence: Combination of Me skills (self-awareness/control) and We skills (social abilities).
• Extrinsic Motivation: Drive based on external rewards and punishments.
• Intrinsic Motivation: Self-motivation that comes from within.

Action Items / Next Steps

• Prioritize social interactions (talking, cooing, singing, playing, reading) with babies from earliest days.
• Encourage rather than squelch children's natural questioning and sense of wonder.
• Foster intrinsic motivation through praise and pride rather than rewards like sweets and treats.
• Give children "wiggle room" and hands-on learning opportunities instead of insisting they sit still.
• Celebrate children's failures and resilience, not just milestone successes.
• Avoid convincing children there's only one right way to see or do things.
• Apply what we know about key skills early, recognizing that what happens in early childhood doesn't stay there.