Evenings at our after-school lab are usually lively. When a child calls out, "Look, look!" and I hurry over, it is almost always a winning screen in a game, or two kids showing each other something they made. Their eyes are shining.
On the other hand, the moment we try to open with "Let's learn something today," the air changes. "Nah, not that stuff." "I don't want to hear the boring talk." Before we finish a sentence, they are often already planning the next game.
Let me be honest. I started this activity from a conviction: in the years ahead, being able to use AI well will be an essential strength, and for that, a child first needs to be able to use a computer as their own tool. I want these children to grow up on the side that thinks, chooses, and uses AI and digital technology — not the side that is used by it. That wish is where everything began.
But standing in the actual room, the road to that ideal is not straight. The children are absorbed in play, and they rarely face the "learning" we have prepared. At first, I honestly did not know how to reach them.
A Place to Play Beyond School Walls
Then again, most of the children who come are elementary schoolers. Moving, laughing, celebrating wins and groaning at losses — for children at the peak of their playing years, that is the most natural thing in the world. Lately I have come to think that somewhere beyond these hours of absorbed play, something may one day connect to learning.
And this place gathers children from different schools. Kids of different ages, who would normally never meet, warm up to each other in no time in front of a screen and play together. A third place that is neither school nor home. I keep telling myself that this place itself has meaning.
In child development, it is said that what matters is not only the abilities tests can measure, but also "non-cognitive skills" — the capacity to relate to others and to keep going. Hours of absorption that cross school boundaries surely become soil for those skills. Seen that way, even the time spent just playing is not wasted.
The Question That Remains
Still, the inner conflict does not go away. I do want to build a place that leads to learning. While hoping to raise people who can master AI and make a computer their own tool, we are not yet at a stage where I can say with confidence that we are doing so. After playing, and playing, and playing to their heart's content — will the feeling of "now I want to try making something with this computer" really sprout?
In education, it is believed that the deepest learning comes from intrinsic motivation — the "I want to try this" that wells up from inside, not from being told. Absorption in play can be its entrance. But watching the room day after day, I see some children in whom "I want to make something" sprouts beyond the play, and others for whom play stays play. Where does that individual difference come from? Honestly, I do not clearly know yet.
Even so, small changes sometimes show themselves. Friends start working out together why a game went wrong, or a child leans in at something another kid made and asks, "How did you do that?" It may still be too small to call learning. But in that one question, in that posture, I sometimes glimpse the doorway where play starts turning toward learning.
The spark might be a game the kid next to them built, or a sudden moment of "I did it." Are we managing to plant those seeds, or should we simply watch over them quietly? With no answer in hand, we keep up our trial and error, day after day.
Trusting the Hours of Absorption Themselves
Even so, there is one thing I want to believe: a place where a child can be completely absorbed in something is quietly growing the seeds that will one day turn into "I want to make" and "I want to know." When and in what form those seeds sprout differs from child to child.
Does what I am doing truly have meaning? Honestly, I cannot say for certain. I only hope that at least some of it does. Trusting that learning lies somewhere beyond the hours of absorption, without rushing to teach, I want to keep this place going.
Is there learning beyond the fun? Carrying that question with me, I open the door of the after-school lab again today.