Teaching Basic Economics to Fifth Graders
My goal with these fifth graders, writes Arthur Foulkes, was not just to introduce them to the basics of economic science, but to inoculate them against future attempts to teach them bad economics. By showing them that trade, money, savings, competition, and prices all have distinctly human origins and purposes, I hoped to help them make better sense out of the "economics" they will some day be exposed to. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (25)
Fantastic! That's one class of kids innoculated against stupidity.
Published: June 21, 2006 7:43 AM
Mises believed firmly that only a victory of ideas could allow liberty to prevail. What better way to start than by educating children in the basics of human action?
Published: June 21, 2006 8:02 AM
Gee, "getting the kids early to teach them your ideas before someone teaches them something else..."
Where have I heard that before?
But seriously, these are great lessons. Well done! I'm bookmarking this story in case I ever get the chance to do the same kind of thing!
Published: June 21, 2006 9:35 AM
This is great! I have posted a link on my blog.
Thanks for a wonderful way to explain this to the economically illiterate.
I don't suppose you'd like to share some more detailed instructions about the games you played?
Have a good one!
Published: June 21, 2006 10:34 AM
Wow, how cool. Sorta brightens my day to know that at least these kids are getting a bit of economic education, and so early. Good job!
Published: June 21, 2006 11:24 AM
If the kids thought the class was "fun", you may get invited to do this on a repeat basis, even if the economics teacher found the stuff difficult to digest. ;-)
Published: June 21, 2006 11:35 AM
excellent.. nice to know that class got a good education in economics..
Published: June 21, 2006 11:44 AM
My daughter in grade 6 public school had to study "Canada's imports and exports". She found it extremely boring and irrelevant, and she asked me why she had to study it. I told her that the only reason why she had to study this subject was because governments think that it is their job to "manage" imports and exports, and that no real businessperson has to study or analyze any of this - a businessperson simply has to find suppliers of the goods they need, and buyers for the goods they produce. Nobody needs to know if Canada's exports of lumber balance her imports of computer equipment. In any case, the categories of goods are extremely imprecise, and there was no textbook to rely on for information (budget squeezes plus the constant government-initiated churn of school curricula means that textbooks have entirely disappeared from Ontario elementary schools - therefore teachers are given a brief description of the curricula and then have to scrounge materials online and from other teachers).
The real kicker, as I explained to my daughter, is that the Government of Canada spent most of its existence since 1867 (and for about 2 centuries beforehand, going back to the government of New France in the 1600s) trying to *discourage* foreign trade by its citizens, in order to protect local manufacturers and farmers. Now they think that they must *encourage* foreign trade, by studying and analyzing it, subsidizing exporters, etc. - as if businesspeople need non-businesspeople telling them what to do!
Published: June 21, 2006 11:48 AM
Excellent, Arthur, bravo! We blogged this on LibertyGuys.org today. Keep it up - a generation of children is counting on you!
Published: June 21, 2006 11:52 AM
Sorry, link to our blogpost is here
Published: June 21, 2006 12:05 PM
OK, my HTML skills are pathetic;
http://www.libertyguys.org/articles/detail.asp?ArtID=1373
Published: June 21, 2006 12:17 PM
Best regards to Mr. Foulkes from a teacher of economics at secondary level (16/17 years old) in Spain, regardlees the difficulties in the curriculum imposed by the administration.
Published: June 21, 2006 1:54 PM
Best regards to Mr. Foulkes from a teacher of economics at secondary level (16/17 years old) in Spain, regardlees the difficulties in the curriculum imposed by the administration.
Published: June 21, 2006 1:55 PM
Could you pinpoint some educational resources (no problem if they are written in english) in this trend that could be worked at the other part of the Atlantic by our students?
Published: June 21, 2006 2:03 PM
Jordi,
You might like to check this out:
http://cedice.org.ve/detalle_libreria.asp?ID=104
Published: June 21, 2006 3:33 PM
Thank you, Mark. I read this work by Gene Callahan some time ago. Very good as an introduction, undoubtedly. It's curious enough to see that it's published in Venezuela. Mr Chávez must not know it.
Published: June 21, 2006 6:16 PM
That was phenomenal!
Published: June 21, 2006 6:48 PM
Superb! Not only in what was taught, but how it was taught. Kids learn best when they think they are just playing. I wish I had had an economics course like this. Come to think of it, I never had anything on economics all though public school.
But I wonder if their teacher will invite you back. No good deed goes unpunished.
Published: June 21, 2006 8:25 PM
One might think that everyone has learned these basic concepts of economics, but you would be surprised how many have not.
I've come to the conclusion in my professional work as a mediator in domestic relations (divorce, custody, child support, etc., etc.) that a great many people grow up believing that compromise ("com"-"promise"--the coming together through agreement) is impossible and that all relationships must have some authority (judge, police, etc.) to back them up, otherwise no agreement is possible! And they believe that the authority will get them what they want, which, to me, is even more unbelievable, particularly when we are dealing with a forced legal structure.
Mediators have many techniques in helping to break this assumption down, before the parties go before a judge (many mediation websites have explanations on them). I often use a combination of several, including a "baby-steps, big picture" approach. By breaking property disputes down to the smallest components,, say stationary (pencils, pens), and move on to larger things until we come to areas of disagreement, which be reviewed later after both parties begin to use a bargaining process with a number of objects. By starting the process with small things, the idea of compromise becomes more acceptable, all with the larger goal of making it through any contended matters within the separation.
This is a valuable process of empowerment for both. They maintain complete control over their property, and their lives. If it comes to a judge's decision, then all the judge will need to do is to sign their separation agreement, and no one else need tell them what to do.
Often mediation works, but there are situations where the very notion of mutual agreement will not be entertained by one or both parties. Regretfully, there have been no "basic economic" lessons, no bargaining was ever learned by either.
I would love for everyone to have taken such a class as discussed here.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/
Published: June 21, 2006 9:38 PM
Jordi,
You're quite welcome. The first link, below, is from The Future of Freedom Foundation, though many links seemed to be out of order:
http://www.fff.org/spanish/nosotros/links.asp
This group seems to have quite a few good books en Espanol:
http://www.atlas.org.ar/
Published: June 21, 2006 9:59 PM
Great work! I even learned something from the article; namely, saving promotes social welfare in many more ways than I thought. Well yesterday a lucky enough fifth grader would have outsmart me on saving. Maybe we could teach this the same way to adults, since many are so naive and childish about whats going on in the world they live in.
Published: June 21, 2006 10:28 PM
When my son took economics in high school, they taught him that you make money in the stock market by price appreciation. They never mentioned dividends or price-to-earnings ratios as a way to value stocks. It would appear that public education is merging with late-night infomercials...
Published: June 22, 2006 10:56 AM
I believe that this sort of learning activity is definately not just for kids, but most adults could stand to benefit from these activities. I think that most people's lack of economic understanding does indeed stem from the fact that almost no one sees the market in its fundamental form anymore. No longer do we go to a market where a fellow citizen of our locality sells and exchanges their wares for those of others. It's hard to see or understand some of these basic relationships because of how much the faces of our market transactions have changed.
Published: June 24, 2006 10:16 AM
A very good article.
It is sad that most children will not be taught economics in school - they will be taught nonsense under the name of economics.
With all the "perfect competition" (which has you rightly say has no connection with actual competition),"increasing demand to counter recession" (issue more money and people will be rich) and other stupid concepts.
Some of the students will be turned into leftists by all the profound seeming graphs and big words that are used on them.
But most students will just be left confused and bored.
Sadly either way the left win.
The students who accept the doctrines they are taught will go out become statist activists.
And the students that are left confused and bored will shy away from any debate about economic policy (thus leaving the field in the control of the statist activists).
Still even if government schools no longer existed we would still need people like you to fight the good fight (after all private schools can still teach nonsense - if that is all that is available).
Published: June 25, 2006 11:21 AM
I used Richard Maybury's Uncle Eric books for four years in an inner city private school. I found that my students had a greater interest in History, Mathematics, and even Literature when provided with a model of economics that made sense and was applicable to their immediate lives. So much was I enlightened that I chose to go back to school to study economics in depth and hope to later apply good economic models to law and ethics.
Thanks for the excellent post.
Nathanael Snow
Published: June 25, 2006 9:24 PM