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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > June > 14 > Entry
Do bored teens make great entreprenuers?
(Michael Dell, founder of the Dell, Inc., computer company)
There’s a lot of complaining about our lazy, distracted kids here in America. They waste hours and hours on video games, working at dead end fast food jobs and just plain hanging out, killing time.
There are a lot of advocates for education reform in the U.S. who’d like our kids to grow up in a more academically demanding environment, with more hours in school and with expectations so high that they would have no choice but to spend most of their free time studying.
On the surface, It’s really hard to argue with people who think we should expect more of our kids and want them to come out of school more skilled and more academically proficient.
But when it comes to education, there is almost always another side of the coin to consider. And in today’s New York Times business section, of all places, you can find an unexpected arguement that youthful leisure time might actually be good for America.
It just might be a key source of our legendary entrepreneurial spirit.
In a column today, the Times’ Tyler Cowen argues that the U.S. has more young entrepreneurs than middle age entrepreneurs, a phenomeon that is unique in the world. And he points out that some of our most famous and successful business leaders — Michael Dell, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Even Microsoft founder Bill Gates — got their start in business as young people toying around with ideas for starting new companies.
Maybe these kids would not have achieved so much if they didn’t have some time on their hands. What if Michael Dell hadn’t learned business basics by collecting and selling rare stamps in his spare time as a pre-teen because he was in school a couple more hours a day, drilling on algebra equations?
Perhaps this is why many of us fondly remember our crappy teen-aged jobs even though research suggests working in fast food or delivering papers actually harms kids efforts to learn in school?
And maybe this is why some reformers in countries like China, much admired by some for its rigid curriculum and testing heavy government education program, are arguing that schools there should be more like American schools by encouring kids to participate more in activities?
What do you think? Does the more leisurely American approach foster entrepreneurial thinking in our kids? Where is the balance between free time and academic rigor?
(Image credit: Rueters)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By laura
June 14, 2007 9:38 PM | Link to this
The thought that people want American students to be more like China’s is frightening. As the article stated, many in China want their schools to become more like American schools, in part to lower the teen suicide rate. The stress for Chinese students to succeed in their rigorous programs is not something we should be aspiring towards. Instead, we should encourage students to work towards their personal best, not that of a foreign statistic.