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Learning is a lifelong journey. Getting an education should not be reduced to obtaining employable skills that reflect the economy’s needs. Practically speaking, there are ancient traditions which must be kept alive, and people have the desire to learn beyond the bare minimum for employment.

Let’s take a look at a few subjects that kids can learn to ensure their education isn’t just good but enriching.

Coding

Today, it’s easy to find online coding classes for kids that teach how to build a video game. Kids can learn how to write in coding languages that employers want their teams to know, like Python, Java, JavaScript, C#, and C++.

While there are immediate practical gains, there are also various secondary benefits from learning to code, too. Coding languages are other languages, like French or Spanish, with their own syntax, structure, and more.

Learning to code helps kids to think and problem-solve like an engineer. Look for a program that caps class sizes at four so each student gets their teacher’s full attention.

Chess

Learning how to play chess is beautiful for children because it’s pretty much logic at play. There are only a few rules concerning how the pieces move, and things like en passant or castling. After that, chess pits one person’s mind against another. Unlike games with cards or dice, there’s no component of luck involved.

There isn’t only one correct way to play chess. At grandmaster levels, players with different temperaments compete against each other ultra competitively. Some attacking players who opt for open lines face off against defensive tacticians who know how to make effective slow, quiet moves that twist the screw in the position without ever making them weaker.

There’s a reason that students in elite private schools learn to play chess.

Reading

Reading is an essential component of education at every level, but there’s always outside reading people can do that isn’t required for class. For years, kids grew up hearing ancient Greek mythology, even if it isn’t typical for children today to read Herodotus or even Homer.

By all means, kids should pursue their interests. They can read biographies about artists or other people they admire, graphic novels that excite their aesthetic sense and love of a story, or whatever else.

Sometimes forcing literature on kids can sour them on reading, so you don’t want to be too aggressive, but it’s also OK to push them a little bit! Sometimes people don’t know what they don’t know, and they may never encounter something they come to love if nobody guides them to it, even if they resist initially.

Don’t force a 10-year-old to read all of Proust, but introducing some more ambitious works to young readers will make them devout, lifelong readers.

Parents and students don’t need to be told to learn what’s essential for getting a job. People do that anyway. For an enriched education that goes beyond the basics, keep some of the above tips in mind.