Category Archives: 21st Century Learning

Feature: Junior Achievement’s efforts to teach kids around the world about business

Feature: Junior Achievement’s efforts to teach kids around the world about business

By Kate Foley, Fearless Ambition


When people think of Junior Achievement, the first thing that comes to mind may be the JA they experienced when they were a kid.

“Their perception that all we do is teach kids how to make lamps and birdhouses,” says Marketing and Media Relations director Stephanie Bell.

However, Bell says, JA has grown substantially in the last 20 years, and is now a global organization that reaches 122 countries in all parts of the world.

Today’s JA offers 24 program in the U.S. alone, covering business concepts like work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy.

“JA empowers young people to own their economic success,” Bell said. JA’s programs create an online space where teams of kids and teens can create and run a virtual marketing company together. The competitive environment in the online program mimics real business situations, which allows the students to learn what life is like ‘in the real world’.

“Students can understand the relevance to what they learn in the classroom and how it matters to their life. Our programs make that connection for them,” Bell said.

Bell, who has worked for Junior Achievement since 2001, says she feels inspired by teaching students business success at a young age.

“I really enjoy doing something with such a positive impact on young people,” Bell said. “At the risk of sounding cheesy, I hope that will help make the world a better place.”

With its global expansion over the last few decades, JA is definitely working to impact the world. Its current curricula cover six continents. Regional operating centers around the world take U.S. developed programs, and culturally adapt them to other countries to suit their own economic and cultural interests.

For more information on Junior Achievement, or to get involved, visit their website at www.ja.org.

Announcing Beck University

Announcing Beck University

Glenn Beck offers online classes to his followers

From GlennBeck.com

School may be out for the summer, but for Glenn Beck class is just starting.

This July, while others are relaxing poolside, head back to the classroom – from the comfort of your own home. That may sound like an oxymoron but Glenn’s new academic program is only available online.

Offered exclusively to Insider Extreme subscribers, Beck University is a unique academic experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history and economics. Through captivating lectures and interactive online discussions, these experts will explore the concepts of Faith, Hope and Charity and show you how they influence America’s past, her present and most importantly her future.

So don’t miss out on this amazing experience. Enroll in Beck University today by subscribing to Insider Extreme.

NOTE: All Beck U classes will be made available on demand the following day.

Professor Bios…

David Barton is the founder and president of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization that presents America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious, and constitutional heritage.

David is the author of numerous best-selling books, with the subjects being drawn largely from his massive library-museum of tens of thousands of original writings, documents, and artifacts from early America.

His exhaustive research has rendered him an expert in historical and constitutional issues. He serves as a consultant to state and federal legislators, has participated in several cases at the Supreme Court, has been involved in the development of social studies standards for numerous states, and has helped produce some popular history textbooks now used in schools across the nation.

David L. Buckner is the President of Bottom Line Training and Consulting Inc., a consulting and training firm specializing in executive management development and business acumen training focusing on cultural integration, change management and strategic efficiencies.

For more than 20 years Mr. Buckner has been a keynote speaker, author, and featured trainer at business conferences and conventions throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Far East. His passionate, practical, engaging and timely approach to complex issues sets him apart from other keynote educators and has established him as a highly regarded and frequently requested keynote speaker.

Mr. Buckner received his Juris Doctorate Degree from J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, holds an MBA from Durham University, England, and an MA in International Relations from the Kennedy Center for International Studies at BYU.

James R. Stoner, Jr., is Professor of Political Science at Louisiana State University, where he has taught since 1988 and chaired his department since 2007.

He is the author of Common-Law Liberty: Rethinking American Constitutionalism and Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism, as well as a number of articles and essays. In 2002 and 2003 he was a visiting fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, and he served from 2002 to 2006 on the National Council on the Humanities, to which he was appointed by President Bush. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1987 and his A.B. from Middlebury College in 1977.

High School Drop Out Rates cost the US Billions

High School drop out rates affect our economy in vast and numerous ways.  Eating at the core of our job market and economic growth as a whole we are faced with the question of what to do with our education system.  Our nations High School drop out rates are only growing and the expense of this over the life time of just one drop out is imense.  To put things into perspective;  if the kids that had dropped out of high school had actually graduated in the year 2007, this country would have benefited with an additional 321 Billion dollars over their lifetime.  Go to The Kidpreneur Club and donate to a movement dedicated to educating kids about entrepreneurship, business and real-world lessons.

Feature: Susan Beacham follows her dreams with financial education for kids

We’re all familiar with the traditional piggy bank. The cute curly tail, smiling piggy face, and slot on its back for depositing cash. It teaches kids to save their money at an early age, produces a hearty jingle from the coins when shaken, and offers a certain satisfaction when the time comes to break it open with a hammer. But imagine a piggy bank with four slots, four chambers with specific purposes. This invention is not your traditional bank. It is the brain child of Susan Beacham, a financially-savvy mother who realized that young kids need more than just the normal ceramic pig to learn about their managing money.

Beacham’s four-chambered bank, lovingly called the Money Saving Pig, is not one designed to be cracked into impulsively. Its separate compartments are meant to teach children to hold onto their money. ‘Save’, ‘Spend’, ‘Invest’ and ‘Donate’ label each chamber, and along with Beacham’s teaching curriculum this ingenious pig teaches kids as young as six how to divide their finances.

The idea for Beacham’s educational plan came about five years ago. At the time, she was a financial service advisor, teaching recently divorced and widowed women how to budget their money. She realized that focusing on money at time of crisis is the worst time for a person, but found that she had a hard time getting people to focus on it before then was sometimes nearly impossible. Then one day, as she was helping her first-grade daughter with her Latin homework (yes, Latin in elementary school!), she had a revelation.

“If she’s learning something as complicated as Latin in first grade, then why can’t we get [kids] to learn something about finances as well?” Beacham asked herself. She realized that financial education needs to start much sooner in life, when behavior and thinking could be easily molded.

“I’ve always had a burning desire to work with and help kids,” she said. “I originally wanted to go into social work, to save the world.” So when going to law school and later into financial services didn’t seem fulfilling to her, she decided to quit teaching adults how to budget, save and invest their money and focused on reaching out to the kids instead. To her, it seemed as though she had finally found a way to follow her calling in life.

However, Beacham reached a snag in her plan when she realized teaching kids requires much different tactics than teaching adults.

“I walked into a first grade classroom and found I was incapable of talking to kids. I was presenting these ideas as though to adults,” she said. “Kids don’t deal very well with abstract concepts; their brains aren’t developed enough.”

She figured out that she needed to use concrete teaching techniques with the kids, and soon devised a method of four cups attached with twist ties. Her pupils loved the idea, and Beacham’s education made a good impression on them. The children would take the cup idea home to their parents and show them how they learned to save their money. But here lay another problem: the flimsy plastic cups, though great in theory, rarely made the rough trip from school to home. They would break on the bus, tear in backpacks, were in general not sturdy enough to be a permanent learning tool.

One night, Beacham said, she dreamed up her solution. Her dream was of a piggy bank. At first glance it was just a normal bank, but looking closer she saw it had four slots and compartments labeled like her cup creation. Right away, she decided to invest in this idea. Pretty soon the Money Saving Pig was in the works, a sturdy plastic bank that made a more permanent solution to her inventive cup idea.

Beacham’s next task was to figure out how to sell her bank. While sitting in her booth at a gift show in Chicago, she listened to a constant stream of orders launched at the nearby Beanie Baby booth and wondered how she could get that kind of business.

“It was humbling to hear people screaming out orders of beanie babies, with no one at my booth,” she said. Eventually, a woman approached Beacham’s booth and asked “Are these yours?” Exasperated, Beacham replied shortly that she was selling them. “No,” the woman replied, “I mean, did you invent them?” Taking Beacham’s hand, the women went on to explain that her pastor was on a mission to cure the world of “social ills”, and that she believed this financial education tool could be a great attribution to the world.

It wasn’t long before Beacham was receiving phone calls from women’s and children’s shelters, advocacy groups, even Oprah, asking her to spread the word about her mission. She appeared on Dr. Phil twice, which launched her plan farther than she could have imagined. Soon countries such as Australia, Mexico and Switzerland were using her teaching methods and Money Saving Pig.

Eleven years later, the company has sold over two million piggy banks and teaches its finance curriculum in 32 states and several countries worldwide. Her program is taught in classrooms, homes, after-school programs, financial programs, summer camps and Sunday schools. Despite her business’s global popularity, however, Beacham says her focus is not on expanding the company so much as making a difference in the world. During our interview, she admitted that she was less worried about the Washington Post’s upcoming article about her product, and more nervous about having to teach in front of 89 elementary students.

Through the years, Beacham has viewed her success as a gift from God.

“I believe that so much of the work we are doing is grace in our life,” she said. “I know that what we’ve done takes a certain amount of ambition, and stone-cold belief that this is the right thing to do.”

And you can take that to the bank.

The Voice of the 21st Century Student is Speaking..are we Listening?

This guy is really amazing on so many levels and for so many reasons.  Dan Brown has put me in a state of Awe because of his Audacious Fearless Ambition.  He speaks the truth and speaks for our Youth. 

 Please listen up and open your minds and be aware that he is not the far and few in between.  He is the norm…he is our future and he is the voice of every student walking the halls of every school with glazed expression begging for us to empower him to

  • create
  • innovate

and become the next Entrepreneur with the next BIG IDEA!

 

 

Bored with 21st Century Skills? Get over It

By: Mike Sansone
Uks primary curriculum

Blogs and Social Media as Conversation Stations

I hear a lot of business people, teachers, educators — and some edubloggers — who are already tired of the term “21st Century Skills.”  Get over it!  The term is going to be around for a long, long time. The definition? Possibly ever-evolving.

I remember when the cry of “PR is Dead” or “Your Home Page Doesn’t Matter Anymore” started circling around a few years back. Folks were aghast. Arguments ensued. Egos bruised. Awareness followed.

Wait…what was that last one?  Awareness?  Yep.

Let’s not get caught up on 21st Century Skills being [about] using a computer, social network, or mobile device. Two decades ago, Twitter wasn’t a twinkle in our eye — now it’s everywhere.  At the end of this century, Twitter may not be a 21st Century Tool, let alone a 21st Century Skill.

I would argue that the skillset of this century — or at least this early portion of it — has little to do with tools and has more to do with mind and heart. Things we read in Tony Wagner’s Global Achievement Gap, Angela Maiers’ Classroom Habitudes, Sally Hogshead’s Radical Careering, and almost everything Karen Salmansohn writes.

– Imagination
– Curiosity
– Guts
– Listening (also a 8th, 12th, 19th, 20th century skill)
– Adaptability
– Patience
– Verve
– Collaborativity (the art of collaboration?)

If the term 21st Century Skills is a slap in the face, let’s wake up and see it for what it is and move forward.  Develop the skills of learning and discerning, of gleaning and teaming up, of breaking down the silos that hold us back — for by doing these things we will breakthrough the barriers holding us stuck in whatever decade or century we’re stuck in and be ready for the decades ahead.

Photo on Flickr from Cristobal Cobo Romani

Read more: http://www.converstations.com/#ixzz0SedNPjNS

Don’t Teach your kids this stuff..Please??

Photo by Flickr
Photo by Flickr

Don’t teach your kids this stuff. Please?

By Scott Mcleod, J.D, PH.D.

dear parent

teacher

administrator

board member

don’t teach your kids to read

for the Web

to scan

RSS

aggregate

synthesize

don’t teach your kids to write

online
pen and paper aren’t going anywhere

since when do kids need an audience?
no need to hyperlink

make videos

audio

Flash

no connecting, now
no social networking

or online chat

or comments

or PLNs

blogs and twitter?

how self-absorbed

what a bunch of crap
and definitely, absolutely, resolutely, no cell phones
block it all

lock it down

keep it out
it’s evil, you know

there’s bad stuff out there

gotta keep your children safe

don’t you know collaboration is just another word for cheating?

don’t you know how much junk is out there?

haven’t you ever heard of sexting?

of cyberbullying?
a computer 24-7? no thanks

I don’t want them

creating

sharing

thinking

learning

you know they’re just going to look at porn

and hook up with predators

we can’t trust them

don’t do any of it, please

really

’cause I’m doing all of it with my kids
can’t wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two

can you?

Reading WITHOUT Meaning – The Conversation Continues

Reading WITHOUT Meaning – The Conversation Continues

By: Angela Maiers

BLOG2

Boy

One of the things that I love most about the blogosphere is that the conversation never ends.  We deepen understanding when we revisit and reflect on our words and they way in which they are heard by another.  It is exciting to see how the conversation evolves as it journeys across and within Twitter, blogs, and face-to-face encounters. As Jeff Utech and Will Richardson describe, this is network literacy in action.

I have been closely watching the conversation that emerged from my Reading WITHOUT meaning series.  Sara Bennett, author of The Case Against Homework and the passionate educators at The Camp Creek Blog has created quite a dialogue with their readers. As I explored the 150+ comments, many powerful themes jumped out to me:

Fear:

  • This is my greatest fear. It happened this winter to my 7 year old.
  • While I haven’t asked because I’m afraid of the answers I’ll get, I’d bet that my kids can’t stand reading. To them, reading can’t be fun. It’s just another pressure-packed opportunity to be assessed. There’s always a wrong answer when it comes to reading — and wrong answers never feel good.”

Concern:

  • How can educators do a better job of nurturing curiosity, creativity and learning?
  • There’s that one little word in Angela’s son’s response that tips us off to the problem: do. As in, “I dream of the day when I will never have to do reading again.” You don’t *do* reading. You read. Unless someone has stolen reading from you and made it something to do for him or her. So sad!

Uncertainty:

  • What do we do? More parents and teachers need to speak up on this, but how? Will the schools listen to our concerns?

Disconnect:

  • The constant grading, testing, “reading comprehension strategy” nonsense is a million miles away from reading as the pleasurable, basic human activity it’s been for the last few centuries
  • This seems all the more ironic considering that, in the UK, our right to allow our children to learn to love reading at their own pace (and learn to love learning for that matter) is about to be ripped away from us. I am left wondering how the evidence of repeated studies into how children learn can be ignored and called progress.
  • It makes me think about something that happened with one of my son’s closest friends last week. We were at the pool, and the little boy’s father told him that he (the boy) knows what will happen: either he chooses to join the swim team and go to practice, or he sits with his father beside the pool and works on his reading. For 45 minutes. Well he doesn’t want to swim on the team, so he has to work on his reading! This little boy has just turned four years old! And he has one of the gentlest families I know of. I could not believe it. They were using reading as a punishment!

Empathy:

  • As a teacher, I understand both sides of this debate. I also think some of the people posting messages on here should be aware that (in my case) with 5 classes of 30-35 students (that’s over 150 students that I see every day for only about 48 minutes).. It seems that some of the people posting here are forgetting to look at things both ways. Yes, you want what’s best for YOUR student…but maybe you’re failing to consider the fact that that’s exactly what the teachers are trying to do…for ALL their students.

Passion:

  • Hold me back!! One of my favorite soapboxes!! How mandated “excellence” and “accountability” is robbing kids of a love of reading! aka the Accelerated Reading test and the death of reading. Kids are forced to stay at a level of “points” that they [and the teacher] know they can “pass” the AR test for. Hence their interest level and their “testing” level end up out-of-whack and they hate reading “baby books” just to pass the damned test. No one bothers to teach them how to pass the test for “harder” more enjoyable books.Reading is also mandated for X amount of time. We’ve all sat there looking at a book and getting no where with it. We put it aside and it becomes a great read another day. This is not allowed. You must pick a book and stick with it during silent reading time. After all the big AR test is looming. You will never create readers by doing this to them. Kids who have not learned the love of reading by being read to are missing out on such a huge part of emotional development.It’s become a cliche, but more people need to reconsider how they think about education: Can you tell this is a hot subject for me!!
  • Very Simply! We need to change the culture. The bottom line is not allowing arbitrary assignments with no basis in sound practice to hurt children’s curiosity and love of learning and reading. Like doctors, educators need to think seriously about their role and, first, do no harm.

I am encouraged and hopeful that dialogue like this will continue to move the issue to the forefront of the conversations about the future direction of reading and reading instruction. There is more to be said, so share your thoughts!

Photo on Flickr by DoBSoN77