Mankind has a problem many problems, some of them can be fixed. Some can be fixed quickly, some will take a long time. Education is one of the most effective solutions, not only because it develops problem-solving skills, but also because it helps prevent the issues in the first place.

Adults are rather difficult to change, their personality has taken shape, and only those with a strong will can change it. Therefore, it is very important that education is applied as early as possible; basically, the idea is to "hit them while they're too young to be able to retaliate" :-)

I conclude that one of the ways in which this can be applied, besides conventional education (schools, universities), is bedtime stories. Yes, fairy tales are not just "text about nothing", they play an important role in the development of a child's individuality. They are a valuable resource which we must use wisely.

My plan is to change the course of history by preparing a generation of people who are able to build a better society.

What's wrong with today's stories?

• Nurturing the wrong features - some stories teach us about wrong things. For example the story about Иванушка Дурачок (Ivan the Fool) tells us that one can get things done by doing nothing - just sit on your bum and watch how things come to you. This breeds people who inspire Dilbert comics, this breeds cheaters who get free rides on the backs of hard working and honest people, etc.
• Nurturing no feature - some stories are just that - a story about a person doing something... nothing special. Yes, there can be descriptions of the breathtaking beauty of nature, or a series of events that the protagonist is a part of... But is that sufficient?
• Not high-tech enough - people get smarter as time flows by. The reason IQ tests are updated to become more difficult is because the average level of intelligence is also growing as mankind evolves. Even though the Flynn effect is disputed, it is still certain that kids today know more than average adults knew many generations ago. Children will learn, all we have to do is feed them with information. It is time to raise the bar.

There is plenty of room for improvement, stories need to be optimized to develop some good features in a child's personality. By "optimized" I mean "specially crafted", such that they get to learn something, and such that whatever is learned is what we believe is important for an individual.

Objectives:

• Establish a list of requirements that define what the new stories should be like.
• Write some stories and test them.

I set up a new section on my wiki, where I collect all the ideas I have about this project - Stories for children. Please take your time to go through the list and do not hesitate to let me know what you think about it. You can express your opinion either via a comment on this page, or on the discussion page on the wiki.

Help is needed, and you can provide it. Whether you are a parent, an older sibling, a teacher, a future mom, a writer or "just" someone who can share some thoughts - please offer your feedback. Let me know which features you think are important for a child, which stories are good, which ones are bad (and why?).

I will be very grateful if you can tell me about things that happened to you and played an important role in your evolution. An example of such an event is provided on page#2 and it can be used as material for a story that teaches a child to put themselves in other people's shoes before judging them (the "Others can be right too" article is another example).

So far the project is still in the "gathering requirements" phase, and it will continue to be in this phase for quite some time.

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