Cenn John

Cenn John (Class of 2001) is the founder of Hatching Dragons, a chain of nurseries that specialise in bilingual immersion and multicultural education. He is also a campaigner for the Smartphone-Free Childhood movement.

Why do you feel so strongly about children and smartphones?

I would never advocate for a tech-free future for children – but there needs to be a conversation about how and when we use it. Technology needs to be a tool: we need to be able to pick it up for a purpose, and put it away when we’ve finished with that purpose.

And that dynamic has changed – we pick it up when we don’t need it, and can’t put it down, which is wreaking havoc with our ability to concentrate, and our mental health.

For the kids it’s more stark – even among children aged 5-7, a quarter have their own smartphones and are using it over 20 hours a week. That number climbs to over 25 hours a week as soon as the child hits 12, at which point 98 per cent of children have them. That’s the the equivalent of 15 football matches a week.

I try to frame this in author Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that to become an expert in anything, we need to dedicate 10,000 hours of practice. At the moment, it will take our children eight years to become expert in social media. We could redirect that to, I don’t know, having a team that might win the World Cup, if we can just turn it off and refocus our attention on what actually matters in life.

The data for children is quite stark, but I would argue the same is true for adults too. I believe adults are probably less productive since the smartphone was invented because now we’re ‘talking’ all the time instead of doing.

How can the trend be turned around, practically?

I believe that children shouldn’t be on social media until they are 16 at the very least. The argument that they need these platforms to socialise is absurd – they see each other in school and, if you need to, you can give them a brick to call their pals in the evening.

But most of the damage – the online bullying, the shared explicit content, sexual predators sidestepping the alleged guardrails social media put in place – occurs in group (or social) fora like WhatsApp, Snapchat and TikTok.

In a bid to practice what I preach, I am actually writing a blog about my own move from being a smartphone user to the Nokia 3210 to test out what it’s like being a business owner and entrepreneur who isn’t in the 24/7 IM mix. [See Cenn’s blog here: https://cenn.substack.com/s/smartphone-free-adulthood]

Does it frustrate you when people say the clock can’t be turned back and nothing can be done?

Something can always be done – it just requires a critical mass of people to say, “Stop”. That very much is the reason for the Smartphone Free Childhood Campaign – we’re asking parents, collectively, to take action at the class level and agree that smartphones are not something their children should need.

I think you have to have hope and you have to believe that things can change. I would say we have a moral duty to try and affect positive change. Otherwise, I’m not sure what the point of life is. There has to be a positive purpose.

I’d call myself a rational optimist. I’m a believer in human progress and achievement, certainly in the long-term, but I also think it can sometimes take good people to nudge the community in the right direction.

As an educator, I see too many parents with phones in their hands. I am – or was – one of them. I think we need to stop that and reclaim a little bit of ourselves, to be more present with and for each other.

How did China come to have such a big influence on your life?

My interest in things East Asian actually started at City. I was lucky enough to do a Japanese GCSE under Mrs Takada with a very small group – and I mean five or six of us. While our peers were watching Tricolore French, we got to watch Yakuza films and read Akira. It was so much more magical. And studying Japanese introduced me to Confucian culture and to Chinese pictographs, which was not only beautiful but conceptually and intellectually exciting. So when given the chance, I opted to do Chinese at University.

Among the lecturers at Edinburgh – all lovely – there was an almost romantic reverence for the old version of Communist China – the Maoism of yesteryear. We were taught a lot of things about China that were years out of date. For instance, we were told that everyone there still addressed each other as “Comrade” or 同志 . But when I arrived in Shanghai in 2003 and having called the first barman “comrade”, I was told it now was a way of suggesting that you might like men and that I should probably desist given that homosexuality was still frowned upon!

But Shanghai in 2003 was electric. The sense of entrepreneurial opportunity and energy was like nothing I’d ever experienced. The energy, the sense of collective purpose and the speed of change all got under my skin. I remember, distinctly, returning to the UK – flying into a grey, wet and overcast Heathrow, with its creaking infrastructure and 20-year long debate about another terminal and runway, when in the same period, China had built over 100… thinking: when can I go back again?

What were you doing before setting up Hatching Dragons and how did you start the company?

After University, I worked in political communications, specialising in international relations. A lot of media and PR work. In 2010 I was given a China Government Scholarship to study at Tsinghua University in Beijing, during which time I set up a college consultancy business.

That business ultimately failed – trying to compete with Chinese locals on their own turf was, I think, naive to say the least. But I returned to the UK to think how I could bring that sense of internationalism back here with me.

It was around this time that I became a dad and so, like all parents, I started looking at childcare options for him. And none spoke to my heart – there was nothing that would immerse him in all the excitement and opportunity that’s out there in the world. So I set about devising a childcare model that would develop language skills and knowledge about the world, to nurture the next generation of global citizens. Bilingual immersion seemed obvious – teaching languages at an age when it’s easiest to achieve, where, cognitively, you can have the most lasting impact.

All the research suggests that introducing ways of learning in early years changes the synaptic structure of the brain as it forms. I definitely knew what it felt like when I was learning Chinese as a teenager; it felt like my brain was working in a different way, trying to think about the different character combinations and ways of pronunciation…

Statistically, languages are shown to be the most elitist subjects, in terms of applicants to universities…

When we set up our first school in Barbican, the journalists who covered our launch wanted to say it was all bankers’ children and quite a rarefied, elitist idea. But I was keen that they interviewed the parents who were jewellery designers or advertising creatives or teachers, to say it wasn’t a hothouse for people in finance. The journalists still wrote that story but we, I hope, showed them that the community is/was larger than that.

What is your aspiration for Hatching Dragons?

At the moment, I am actually much more exercised about making childcare affordable and accessible than I am about bilingual immersion per se. We have the third most expensive childcare system in the OECD; one in 10 women are dropping out of the labour market because of childcare affordability and accessibility; educational outcomes are declining despite fees going up and families are moving out of London. It will make for a very sad City – the City of London itself is already only 50 per cent utilised across the working week.

We have to do more to encourage people to remain here if we want the City to remain be a place of families, young people and business – as it should be for it to remain dynamic.

There is already a way of making this happen. The Workplace Nursery Scheme allows employers to pay childcare fees from the pre-tax income of their staff, reducing taxable earnings to minimise PAYE and employers NICs, which are both payable on the net. But employers can also make corporation tax deductible contributions to the running of the school to negate what their staff teams pay entirely – that is, free childcare for the consumer that is paid for by employers as a tax write off.

And it’s not like the City is lacking the space – there is so much free office space dying to be repurposed. My argument is simple: if you want your staff to come in to work, give them free childcare. It costs you nothing and our research suggests that 90 per cent of your staff would come in, full time and commit to your company long-term.

Did you enjoy your time at City?

Well… it was a different school at that time but I’m happy to hear from my nephew, who attends now, that the school is fun, welcoming and, critically, kind. I gave a talk about Smartphone Free a month or so ago and the children looked happy, engaged, responsible and courteous!

To an extent I was pretty resentful about having to go to the City in the first place. My Dad lost his job in the City and so had to cut back and so I had to change from a school I loved to become a choral scholar at the City to pay for my private school tuition. And as much as I love music, having to sing six days a week all year round save for a couple of weeks in the summer was a bit overbearing – there was no time for other activities like football or parties.

Nevertheless, I became pretty good at the sports I could do on the one day off I had: basketball with Mark, Daoud and Suraj; table tennis (I managed to get into the southeastern championships) and badminton, outside of playing rugby and football at Grove Park.

When my voice finally broke, I suppose I finally rebelled  – I left the City to go to a Sixth form college where I became a bit of a bad boy – and I think came back into myself in my early 20s after that hiatus. So, I don’t want to be unfair to the City – I’m not entirely convinced that I was the best or most willing pupil!

Who had been your favourite teachers at City?

Miss Murphy. She was just amazing. Passionate, a lot of fun, held in really high regard by the students – she along with Mr McDonagh set my love and passion for history. That I think drove me into language and then into politics. And through politics into education – as in, ‘How we can change it for the better?’.

The choir commitments stopped you doing any other extra-curricular activities…

Well, I did some cooking as well! I got [legendary Chinese TV chef and author] Ken Hom to come and do a demonstration for the City’s charity partner Whizz Kids. I used to watch him doing his TV shows, because I had Chinese friends at my school before City. I think this is a testament to my mum, frankly, as she knew how passionate I was about Chinese food and asked me if I’d like to cook with Ken Hom, who was my idol on the TV. I was like, “Sure mum, whatever”.

But she called up his agent (before the internet) and managed to convince him to stop over in London while he was in Europe to do a gig with me, my pal Louis and our friend Lucy Dawson. It was a sell out event in the theatre at the school!

What was your first experience of work?

I think it was Brixton Prison. I worked as an education officer in the summer of 1996, helping to organise lessons for the prisoners. I was still at school, albeit transitioning to the 6th form college. My cousin was working at an agency and no-one wanted this job so he gave it to me. I remember waiting in the prison reception only to have all of the alarms go off – wardens were running everywhere as a guy had just been stabbed. That was my induction. Pretty depressing.

After that, and after school I worked as a chef at the Four Seasons in Canary Wharf, which I think showed me what a good team can look and feel like. I don’t know if I’ve experienced anything that has come close to that: the passion for perfection, the artistry, the commitment to standards, the communication… everyone had the same values, work ethic and focus.

What advice would you give a 16-year-old, based on your career experiences?

Think beyond your own needs and get stuff done. Step outside your brief. Make yourself useful. Don’t wait to be asked.

What is some wrong advice that 16-year-olds receive?

“Follow your dreams”. I don’t know if you have to love what you do, but you do have to be the best at what you do. So I would say stick to what you’re good at, and if you’re good at lots of stuff, I think the challenge is to identify one thing that you can really focus on. You know, to use that 10,000 hours that you would otherwise spend on social media to become the best at something else.

I personally knew I was never going to be good enough to be the best chef in the world, despite cooking being something I still “love”. It’s there for me to enjoy as a balance to what gives me purpose: education.