Economics in the Classroom
Greetings,
I was asked to respond to a Kincheloe article and the curriculum of my area regarding economics. This is how I responded.
If I were asked to teach students the fundamentals of economics, I think my classroom would be constructed in the same manner as I would construct any other classroom. I would attempt promote greater understanding of the world and how it appears to work in my students.
I would start out by outlining what is agreed to be the basics of economics, ideas such as scarcity, trade-offs, interdependence, etc. This could come in the form of examples performed in class (such as demonstrating the Laws of Supply and Demand using candy bars), or discussions and debates (to come to terms with the desire to make money on the stock market, for example, or to reconcile their moral beliefs with that of some company).
I could continue to work within the curriculum (topics such as ‘Guns and Butter’, ‘interest rates/banking system’), but always attempting to place the student into the world in which they live. For example, understanding how they spend money is a way of changing the world around them, either by promoting what is “cool” or promoting something else that is not considered “cool”.
Another way of doing this would be through projects, where students would take their topic, and find out how it applies to them. An example could be what poverty is, how it compares to the wealthy in this nation and in others, and what should be done about it (what they could do) and why.
Overall, my classroom would probably not involve much more than 60% lecture, and even then, the lecture would not be the stereotypical lecture, but rather a teacher-led discussion based on the material. The remaining time would be projects, discussions, and current events speeches (where students would bring in articles relating to economics in some way, and make a brief speech, which could then, possibly, be made into a discussion).
