I teach Sunday comics. Ollie: I have an idea. I have a plot for a made-for-TV movie about economics. The scene: A small, stuffy seminar room in the economics department at Meadows College.
Professor Ralph Whittemore Heinous, 35, struggling, still not tenured, is teaching a senior honors economics seminar. Sally Bright, star student, is presenting a draft of her thesis, a penetrating, complex new theory of how to adjust interest rates in order to keep the economy on track.
Brilliant, original stuff. That night, Heinous, sitting in despair amid the detritus of dozens of failed projects, catches his reflection in the porthole-sized window of his cramped office. Ben Franklin on a bad hair day, he thinks. Desperate, Heinous blotted out the thought. The night before the conference: Heinous, preparing, gets a sense of unease. Heinous presents the paper. The crowd loves it: the original insights, the straightforward conclusions. Heinous is beginning to sweat.
Even worse, while struggling to make sense of errant Equation 14, Heinous sees a familiar face in the back of the room: Sally Bright!! The thing that makes economics boring and frustrating is that everything that ordinary folk attempt to do to improve their lot, is judged or valued in accordance with a rigid system that is specifically designed to keep them exactly where they are, so they see no point in being interested.
Lets put it this way. Those who, earn the most money also have the best jobs, do the most creative work, own the most property, make the most decisions that affect us all, have the best educational opportunities, take up the most space, use the most resources, to power their lifestyles — are very much interested in economics Where as: Those of use who do the worst, dirtiest, boring jobs,get the least wages, do the least creative work, stay in the most unhealthy environments, do very little of the decision making, get the worst education system and so on… are usually to tired after work to make the time to study a system that persistently undoes them.
The economic system we live under neoliberalism is not designed to serve human needs. Many of those students…. How does the federal government support our public schools? When teachers, parents and students think about civics in the classroom, first and foremost they imagine social studies, Constitution Day and the Pledge of Allegiance. It is, of course, part of our responsibility as educators to train students in the history, values and norms inherent in our constitutional system of government and to better prepare them to protect their cherished rights.
Economic literacy, meaning the understanding of basic economic principles and the ability to apply this understanding to everyday life decisions, must also be considered a key aspect of well-rounded civics education. On a whole host of issues—including taxes, government spending, entitlement programs and the minimum wage—students must understand economic concepts in order to be informed participants in the political process.
Poll after poll shows that most Americans have a tenuous grasp of basic economic concepts. First, we must teach economic literacy in ways that students will find relevant, and even exciting. Many students have grown up considering economics to be a remote and inaccessible course of study. But the same thing was once said about U. This is unfortunate because economics is probably the most important subject students can study.
Not only does it help explain how markets allocate resources, but it also offers insights into human action — how individuals make choices. Why is the study of economics so often more dull than it ought to be? Because many economists who view themselves as scientists only apply the analysis of the natural sciences and mathematics to economics. They exclude philosophy and the moral dimension from discussions of public policy because they believe that including such a perspective would be inappropriate.
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