Early this week, Collective Campus hosted our pilot Lemonade Stand - Business School for Kids program. Focused on teaching entrepreneurship to kids, we hosted over a dozen children and taught them business-building basics, running them through the lean startup methodology, building business model canvas, prototyping - they even got to play with a 3D Printer and print their first designs.

While most parents we spoke to in the lead-up to our program were very positive, some parents disagreed, arguing 'kids should be allowed to be kids', and business was not something kids needed to learn, especially during the holidays.

Why Teach Entrepreneurship To Kids?

The unfortunate and uncomfortable truth is schools are not adequately preparing students for the future. At the current rates, 65% of Australia's economy faces significant disruption - every one-to-two weeks, an S&P 500 company is replaced, and automation and robotics are predicted to take over 30% of existing jobs by 2025. Disruption is moving faster than ever, so kids need to become adaptable and empowered to take control, rather than stand still.

So how do schools prepare students for the age of digital disruption? Here are three things schools should be teaching children to make them future proof.

1. Fail Fast, Learn Fast mentality

Gone are the days of 'avoid failure at all costs'. While school tests and exams may not necessarily reflect this, students need to understand that failing is ok, as long as they aim to fail small, and treat each failure as a learning exercise.

When Chrys Bader- Wechseler, co-founder of Secret app spoke to us, he told us he learned to code in his youth by modifying computer games, and that he biggest learnings came from fixing something he had accidentally broken.

By only choosing the safe path, and spending heaps of time and resources planning for every possible outcome and variable has resulted in the dearth of innovation and growth in many a company. By avoiding failure at all costs, companies (and students) alike miss out on valuable learnings, meaning when they eventually do make a mistake (and it's usually a big one), it's usually one that has much more significant consequences. A student's learning should always reflect this - to grow quickly and differentiate themselves, students need to learn it's ok to fail, to break things, and never to make that same mistake again.