Inspiring Entrepreneurship In Kids

Source: ASIDE, 2013

We are in the third year of our fifth grade entrepreneur program, and with each undertaking we get more inspired by our students’ interest, responsibility, and serious approach to the project. Their appetite for the challenge to think like an entrepreneur comes more easily each time.

This spring we were fortunate to have as our speaker Leonard Green, who is an entrepreneur as well as an adjunct lecturer at Babson College, which is ranked number one in the world for its entrepreneur program. To have Professor Green, therefore, as a guest lecturer at our school was quite an honor.  He was awe-inspiring for the students, and to watch him use college strategies with ten-year-old kids was professional development for us, too.

Source: ASIDE, 2013

Professor Green truly believes that all children are born entrepreneurs, but once kids enter school, we teach them rules that stifle creativity. He made no bones about this to the students. He told them that entrepreneurs “break the rules," and that they should find their passions. He let them know from the outset that he lost many jobs and flunked out of three colleges, but he knew he had ideas and kept at it. He was passionate and encouraged them to pursue their dreams. His closing words were “never be concerned about doing things.”

Source: ASIDE, 2013

Entrepreneurship goes to the heart of design thinking. Many of our students this year are practicing this idea at its core by identifying a problem that needs to be solved and coming up with solutions. We could not ask for more as teachers. With each new crop of young entrepreneurs, the excitement for the project builds. We truly believe we can raise every learner to think like one. The more we give kids the opportunity to try, the more it reinforces our belief in the process.