How Do We Develop Human Intelligence (HI)?

AI Is Becoming More Intelligent. What Should We Develop in Children?

AI can diagnose some illnesses better than doctors. But when a patient is frightened, we still need a human doctor to understand the person behind the diagnosis, offer comfort and encourage the patient to keep fighting.

AI can draft a legal contract faster and more cheaply than a lawyer. But when two sides disagree, we still need a human being who can understand both perspectives, build trust and work towards an amicable solution.

AI can develop an algorithm that keeps people scrolling longer. But only human beings can exercise the wisdom to decide whether that is the right feature to build.

AI can become extraordinarily capable. But intelligence alone does not make us human.

What should education develop in children when intelligence is no longer scarce?

At ChildFirst, we call these distinctly human capabilities Human Intelligence — HI.

1. Growth Mindset — Learning to Dare to Try

Young children naturally encounter things they cannot do yet. What matters is how they respond when something is difficult.

Dr Carol Dweck’s research found an important difference in how children respond to praise. When children are praised mainly for being smart or for achieving a good result, they can become protective of that identity. They may avoid difficult challenges because failure could make them feel that they are no longer “smart.”

But when children are praised for their effort, strategies and persistence, they are more willing to take on challenges. They learn that ability is not a fixed label. It can grow.

The willingness to try is therefore not a small personality trait. It is an important part of learning.

Coding happens to be an excellent environment for developing this mindset. A robot does not laugh at a child when they make a mistake. It simply does what the instructions tell it to do.

One ChildFirst parent described what impressed her most about her son’s experience. When she asked what he would do when he could not solve a problem, he replied: “Then I’ll learn from the mistakes.” What impressed the parent was not simply that he could code. It was that he had developed an attitude to try.

2. Executive Function — Learning to Control Ourselves

Children also need to develop the ability to control their attention, impulses and behaviour so that they can work towards a goal.

Executive function includes abilities such as self-control, working memory, flexible thinking, attention and planning.

One of the best-known experiments associated with self-control is Walter Mischel’s Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. In the classic experiment, a young child was given a choice: eat one marshmallow immediately, or wait for the researcher to return and receive two. The child had to resist an immediate temptation in order to receive the larger reward later.

The original research found that children who were able to delay gratification longer tended to be more successful in life. The researchers also found that children could use strategies to help themselves wait — for example, shifting their attention away from the tempting treat. Self-control was therefore not simply about willpower; how children thought about and managed the temptation mattered.

Even more striking is what researchers found when they followed children over decades. The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study followed more than 1,000 children from birth into adulthood. It found that childhood self-control predicted better outcomes in physical health, financial wellbeing, biological ageing and brain ageing, and greater satisfaction with life.

Self-control can be practised.

Consider a simple game of Red Light, Green Light. One child stands at the front with their back to the others. When they call “Green Light”, the children move forward. When they call “Red Light” and turn around, everyone must freeze. Anyone caught moving has to return to the starting point.

For a young child, this is much more than a game. The impulse is: “I want to tag the person first to win the game.” Self-control is: “I need to freeze now, otherwise I’m out.”

3. Creativity — Keeping Originality Alive

In the age of AI, creativity has become easier to generate — but true originality remains scarce.

AI can create stories, images, music and ideas. But if we want children to contribute something genuinely original, they need to develop and practise their own creativity.

Dr George Land’s research provides a striking reminder of what can happen when creativity is not practised. Land originally developed a creativity test for NASA to help identify innovative engineers and scientists. He later used the same test to study children’s creative thinking. He tested 1,600 five-year-olds, and 98% scored in the “highly creative” range. When the children were retested at age 10, the figure had fallen to 30%, and by age 15 to 12%. In a much larger sample of adults, only 2% scored in the highly creative range.

Whether or not every child retains that level of creativity, the message is important: creativity needs to be practised.

That is why we give children many opportunities to imagine, experiment, create and express their own ideas — and much of this happens away from screens. Children draw, build, make things with their hands, invent stories, role-play, experiment with materials, solve open-ended problems and create together with their friends. These experiences give children the freedom to explore possibilities without there being one predetermined right answer.

Technology can then become another medium for creative expression.

Sometimes, we use AI to amplify children’s creativity rather than replace it.

For example, in The Great SG60 Ice Kachang Disaster, children imagined a story around one of Singapore’s favourite desserts and used AI to help bring their ideas to life through images, characters and animation. The technology gave them creative possibilities that would have been much harder to realise on their own, but the ideas, choices and imagination came from the children.

In another activity, children created a Mother’s Day song by first describing their mother — her personality, the things she likes, and what they love about her. AI then helped turn their descriptions into a unique song. Again, the child provides the ideas and meaning; AI provides another way to express them.

This is important because creativity is not simply about producing something that looks or sounds creative. It is about having ideas of your own, imagining possibilities, experimenting, making choices and finding ways to express what you have imagined.

We therefore do not see screen-based AI activities as a replacement for hands-on creative experiences. Children need both: the freedom to create without technology and the opportunity to discover what technology can make possible.

In a world where AI can generate almost anything, we want children to develop the ability to imagine something worth generating.

4. People Skills — Collaboration, Communication and Empathy

Human intelligence is also social. Children need to learn not only how to think, but how to work with people who may think and feel differently from them.

Human qualities cannot be taught simply by talking about them. They have to be experienced. Children develop empathy by encountering another child’s feelings. They learn to collaborate by having to work with someone else. They learn patience by having to wait, and they learn to resolve conflict by actually experiencing disagreement.

Friendship is an important part of this learning.

Young children learn to share, take turns, include others, handle disappointment, resolve disagreements and care about someone else’s feelings. These are not abstract social skills. They are developed through real relationships, often beginning with the simple experience of having a friend.

Our children experience this through everyday interactions as well as group activities and projects. In coding and robotics, children need to communicate their ideas, listen to others, divide tasks, resolve disagreements and work together towards a common result.

I experienced this personally.

Each of my twins has a best friend whom they first met at ChildFirst preschool. Although the four children subsequently went to different schools, they have continued to meet during every school holiday and have remained close friends. They even went on a trip to New Zealand together after their PSLE.

The curriculum matters. But the relationships children build may last much longer than the lessons they learn.

5. Independence — Developing Confidence Through Doing

Children develop confidence not simply by being told that they are capable, but by experiencing that they are capable.

In many families, children are very well taken care of by parents, grandparents or domestic helpers. Adults naturally want to help, but when we do everything for a child, we can unintentionally remove the small opportunities through which independence develops.

Independence is developed through practice: putting on their own shoes, packing their own school bag, returning things after use, cleaning up after themselves and taking responsibility for their belongings.

Each time a child does something successfully that an adult could have done for them, they gain another experience of “I can do this myself.” Repeated experiences of “I can” gradually become confidence.

6. Judgement and Wisdom — Knowing That “Can” Does Not Mean “Should”

Perhaps the most important human capability in the age of AI is judgement.

AI can increasingly answer the question: “Can we do this?” But intelligence alone does not answer the more important question: “Should we?”

The ability to ask “Is this right?” may become more important than simply asking “Is this possible?”

Children therefore need opportunities to think about consequences, fairness, responsibility, other people’s perspectives and what is right — not simply what is possible.

AI may generate possibilities. Humans need judgement. AI may help execute ideas. Humans need originality. AI may provide answers. Humans need to ask the right questions. AI may optimise a goal. Humans need the wisdom to decide whether the goal is worth pursuing.

7. Values, Character and Morals — Learning Through Traditional Chinese Classics

Human Intelligence does not develop only through activities labelled “HI”. It can emerge from the way we teach other subjects as well.

Chinese learning provides a good example. Traditional Chinese culture is rich in stories and classics that explore values, character, morality, courage, loyalty, wisdom, deception and the consequences of our choices.

One of our learning activities is for children to create an animated video retelling the classic Chinese story 孙悟空三打白骨精 — The Monkey King Battles the White Bone Demon.

In the story, the White Bone Demon can transform herself and pretend to be different people — including an old woman or a lost child — in order to deceive the monk. The Monkey King sees through the disguises and eventually exposes the deception.

The children are learning much more than a famous Chinese story. They are also thinking about values, character and moral choices — learning that people are not always who they claim to be and that appearances can be misleading. In today’s world, this can become a starting point for conversations about deception and scams. Chinese culture has many stories that can become vehicles for exploring character, morality, courage, loyalty, deception and wisdom.

HI in the Age of AI

AI can generate possibilities. Humans need judgement. AI can help execute ideas. Humans need originality. AI can provide answers. Humans need to ask the right questions. AI can optimise a goal. Humans need the wisdom to decide whether the goal is worth pursuing.

We are not trying to prepare children to compete with machines at being machines.

We are preparing them to become more fully human — more thoughtful, more creative, more courageous, more empathetic, more capable of forming meaningful relationships, and more able to exercise judgement and wisdom.

The more intelligent technology becomes, the more valuable these human capabilities become.