OPENING THE JAR
In the second extract from his recent autobiography Through a Different Lens, Ger Graus looks back at his time with KidZania and an unexpected opportunity.
My association with the KidZania Group lasted for seven happy years from 2014 to 2021, first as the UK Director of Partnerships and Education and then as KidZania’s first Global Director of Education. There are now 27 KidZania centres in 18 countries around the world and there are more on the way. It is hugely successful. So, what is it?
In the words of the company itself, KidZania ‘is an interactive city made for children aged 4-14 that combines inspiration, fun and learning through realistic role-play.’
That roleplay is centred on the world of employment. And it is fun and it does inspire!
What kids do at KidZania
When children arrive at KidZania, they are given a special bracelet, a symbol of their independence in a way. The bracelet serves multiple purposes. Firstly, it empowers them to safely go off into their world of work, on their own in the centre, independently. It also allows our supervisors to track their whereabouts in case of emergencies, or just if they need to be contacted. Additionally, the electronic bracelet enables KidZania to monitor the choices children make throughout their visit. Each time a child participates in an activity, they log in using their bracelet, providing KidZania with valuable data. Curiosity led me to inquire about and investigate the potential of this data.
Tracking role-play choices
I contacted the data experts at our head office in Mexico, where the group was founded, and asked what we were doing with this wealth of anonymised information. I posed the question, “Can we determine a child’s first choice on their first KidZania visit with a school?” The learning during school visits was more independent than during family visits – in that aspect there was still some de-helicoptering to be done. The answer was a resounding “yes.” Not stopping there, I ambitiously requested as much data as possible, spanning multiple countries. Over time, we accumulated a dataset of nearly 600,000 children across six countries – a sample size that left no room for doubt or scepticism.
What KidZania tells us about children
The significance of this extensive dataset became apparent as time went by. It held the potential to reveal insights that traditional teach-and-test school settings don’t have, bridging the gap between out-of-school experiences and in-school learning. I wanted to uncover valuable information about children’s interests, abilities, aptitudes, and loves outside of the classroom, knowledge that could enhance their educational and schooling journeys. I also wanted to understand those insights better and answer the ‘why?’ questions. The next step was to discover from the anonymised data who these children were. Not of course their names, but, as a group, their age, their gender, their ethnicity, their socio-economic status, their urban or rural background, and the country they resided in – all these factors hold significance.
And the main findings were staggering. They were also obvious, with the benefit of hindsight.
Children can only aspire to what they know exists
Stereotypes, it appeared, were set by the age of 4, if not earlier, although statistical evidence for earlier age groups was yet to be fully established. From the age of 4! Activities within KidZania showcased distinct gender biases, with cabin crew positions overwhelmingly filled by girls and pilots dominated by boys. The automotive experiences were almost entirely the domain of boys, whereas girls took charge of the hotel reception desks and the supermarket tills. Similarly, the maternity unit attracted predominantly girls, while the role of surgeon saw a vast majority of boys.
Sticky stereotypes
Another significant finding emerged – the choices made by children exhibited minimal change between the ages of 4 and 14. The implications of this trend raised thought-provoking questions about the persistence of gender biases in STEM fields and girls’ career aspirations. While girls may outperform boys academically in the sciences, for example, their career choices all too often hark back to societal stereotypes. How can a young Black girl aspire to be a female pilot if she has never witnessed such representation?
Parental eye-opener
Troublingly, irrespective of their backgrounds, girls globally tended to choose activities below their age range, while boys leaned towards age-appropriate or slightly higher activities. This discrepancy speaks volumes about self-confidence, self-esteem, and societal expectations. It echoed the anecdotal observations of adults cautioning little girls at a playground to be careful while cheering boys on with expectations of swift progress and climbing to the top. The implications are profound – the narratives we weave and the expectations we place on children mould their perceptions, subtly influencing their self-worth and aspirations. As a father of two girls, I also found this a parental eye-opener. If their jar is closed we have to open it.
The responsibility of teachers
All these insights, but I think particularly this one, demonstrate how what may be seen as external factors should impact on day-to-day teaching and learning. Once, as a teacher, I am aware of the fact that 9-year-old girls choose 7-year-olds’ activities, and that this is a significant discrepancy in comparison to the behaviour of boys, I need to be aware that if I do not take this into consideration, I might be considered to be professionally negligent. This particularly complex issue calls for a deliberate examination of how we, as adults, subconsciously shape and portray gender roles and expectations. It urges us to transcend narrow confines and embrace a more inclusive perspective, where every child is empowered to explore and discover their own potential.
Opening the jar . . .
When children from disadvantaged contexts visit KidZanias worldwide, their initial choices rarely include ’high status’ professional roles. Instead, they gravitate towards jobs like window cleaning, supermarket work, hotel bed-making, or being a courier. These are the jobs they are familiar with and have seen in their own families and communities. This is the jar, with the lid on. However, as they return to KidZania multiple times, something remarkable happens – they venture into the airplane cockpit and the operating theatre. For some children, confidence-building just takes longer.
. . . and allowing children to climb out
There is an undeniable correlation between investing in experiences and the courage it instils in young minds. As an 11-year-old, the more limited your life experiences, the more investment is needed to expand your horizons. We must acknowledge this when allocating funding for schools – there needs to be investment in inverse proportion to where many children find themselves, at the bottom of the socio-economic and social mobility ladder. And investment does not just mean cash; it also means time, teaching, resources, and non-teaching staff allocations, and of course the flexibility to make the curriculum appropriate to the individual learner, so that with the right scaffolding in place, they can climb out of the jar.
Consultant, teacher, trainer and analyst, Ger Graus was the first Global Director of Education at KidZania, and the founding CEO of the Children’s University. In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Ger Graus was made an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to children.
FEATURE IMAGE: by lolostock iStock
Support Images: by Dan Dennis on Unsplash & inxti iStock
For Ger’s first extract from his book published by ITM, see
