To change our future, we should change how we teach history to children | Yuval Noah Harari

We adults may not be able to unlearn the damaging stories we were told, but we can halt their march through the generations

We cannot shield children from history. In Ukraine, millions of families have lost their homes to Vladimir Putin's war. In Delhi, record shattering temperatures of 50C saw kids locked inside this summer, unable to study or play. Global food prices are soaring, causing children all over the world to go hungry. So, surely it is inevitable that the next generation want to confront the big questions: why are there wars? What is our place in nature? What is money and why is it so important?

Often, children take these questions far more seriously than grownups. They question things that adults take for granted. Adults might find it annoying when a child replies why?" to our every answer. But typically, the child is just trying to get to the bottom of things in a way that adults have long stopped doing.

Unstoppable Us: How Humans Took Over the World by Yuval Noah Harari is published on 20 October

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