|
 Fall
2000
Economics in Action!
Award Recipient
Pam Calvert
The setting is a St. Louis public
general-curriculum high school. The student body, although primarily
African American, includes a diverse group of students from Asia,
Africa, and Eastern Europe. More than eighty percent qualify for free
lunch and more than one-third receive special education. Kids in this
setting may not always recognize that opportunities are available to
all of us. Social studies teacher, Pam Calvert, wanted to introduce
her students to the American Dream. Pam's idea was to bring a new
brand of career option to her students, one in which success is
correlated with the amount of hard work you're willing to endure. Pam
enrolled in Teaching Entrepreneurship, a graduate course offered at
UM-St. Louis. In this class, teachers discover ways to bring
entrepreneurship education into their curriculum. For most teachers,
the integration of entrepreneurship into their marketing, business, or
computer application classes is relatively smooth.Pam's plan was to
incorporate entrepreneurship into her freshman surveycourse which
consists of civics, geography, and economics. However, on thet hird
day of the week-long classroom session, Pam was informed that she
would be teaching five sections of World History. How would she
address entrepreneurship education in World History?Her solution was
so noteworthy that her lesson implementation was published in
Econ-Exchange, a publication of the E. Angus Powell Endowment and the
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Students in her class studied the
entrepreneurial activity in ancient economies, comparing the
characteristics of entrepreneurs then and now. Her students took on
the roles of ancient entrepreneurs and wrote papers discussing their
products,their markets, and the obstacles they faced. Pam applied her
own entrepreneurial creativity to bring her students' world history
lessons alive with real-world applications. |
