It’s fashionable now, among progressive educators, to speak about teaching entrepreneurship.
What most of these folks are actually doing is teaching small business ownership. However admirable that may be, it is not the same thing.
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When we teach history, it’s easy to unwittingly imbue events with a sense of inevitability — of destiny.
After all, things happened the way they happened — the only forking paths we can create are imaginary, born of the “what ifs” that we ask ourselves.
It’s important to see that, at every step of the way, what we call history is the result of human activity. Individual human beings made choices, collectively creating movements or maintaining the status quo. Some choices are more influential than others, but change always comes from people making the decision to act.
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My friend Rose had an evening seminar-style class that ran for more than two hours.
An entire week’s worth of material, covered in one night.
Rose and her classmates found themselves acting like seventh graders. Despite the fact that they were all professionals with internships or jobs in their career field, they would giggle and get off track, carrying on exactly like teenagers.
They took the material seriously, but couldn’t always engage seriously. One day, however, they showed up and conducted themselves maturely. The difference was so marked that their professor commented on it.
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A teacher had been using a free app or organize his communication with students and parents. It worked perfectly.
Then the app decided to start charging its users, which sent the teacher looking for another solution just like the first app, but free.
From an economics perspective, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. If an app solves a problem for you, shouldn’t the maker of the app be paid, thus making your solution sustainable and something you can count on?
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Every morning (along with lunchtime and after school), the piano at The Little Middle School is overtaken by a series of students. Each one informally shares the music they can play. This ranges from video game themes, classical pieces, folk songs, songs we’ve learned in class, to just messing around. Each student will continue to play until they have run through their repertoire to their own satisfaction or find themselves jostled off the bench by the next person (usually the latter).
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