Page 184 - 1-Entrepreneurship and Local Economic Development by Norman Walzer (z-lib.org)

Effective Entrepreneurship Education Programs 173

entrepreneurs, are we willing to accept the chaos when we give students the
chance to test their entrepreneurial wings?
There are many heuristics and techniques for rediscovering and develop-
ing one’s creative and entrepreneurial capacity. Most of these, however, are
based on two themes: (1) curiosity and (2) overcoming one’s “voice of
4
judgment.” Of the two, curiosity is perhaps the easiest to develop. It re-
quires only that students and teachers reframe the questions they ask as part
of the learning process. In particular, one can jumpstart this transformation
by simply emphasizing questions as “why” versus those that ask “how.”
This minor adjustment in one’s approach to problem solving is the differ-
ence between an elementary school student’s asking, “How can I complete
this assignment if I left my pencil box at home?” and one who asks, “Why
isn’t there some place I can borrow (rent) supplies if I left mine at home?’
The first question reinforces a dependency model. Who can help me? The
second represents an opportunity.
Similar examples among middle and high school students are common.
A participant in the Entrepreneur Invention Society program created a busi-
ness when she asked, “Why don’t athletic socks have a pocket for your
house key and spending money?” Another example is the two EntrePrep
students who asked, “Why isn’t there an agency that matches high school
students with summer internships?” Each of these business opportunities
began by questioning the status quo.
Silencing one’s “voice of judgment” is not so easy. It should not be a sur-
prise that after only a few years of socialization by parents, teachers, friends,
and society in general, students are averse to challenging conventional wis-
dom or shared standards of behavior.
Once students recognize how insatiable curiosity and destroying judg-
ment leads to previously unimaginable possibilities, the momentum is self-
sustained. Furthermore, mastery of these skills provides a gateway for de-
veloping the other behaviors in Timmons and Spinelli’s (2006) taxonomy.
Adaptability derives from a willingness to ask, “Why should changes in ex-
ternal conditions derail this idea or business?” Courage and tolerance of
risk flourishes when one overcomes personal and collective judgments that
set the limits on one’s perception of what is possible. Once introduced to
these concepts, the next challenge is creating multiple and varied opportu-
nities in which students can practice and build confidence in their own en-
trepreneurial capacity.

Need for Experiential Learning Opportunities

Returning to teaching chess as a metaphor for teaching entrepreneurship,
one must heed grandmaster Paldofini’s observation in Searching for Bobby
Fisher that to win the game students cannot be passive spectators. Rather,