Fifteen Minutes of Fame and a Lot More: Some Thoughts on Teaching High School Economics and the NASDAQ/NCEE Teaching Awards

Social Studies Review, Fall 2003 by Ochi, Karl

Economic literacy and the ability to regularly apply economic analysis to the world around them are, I believe, rooted in the student's ability to intuitively understand- to "feel," economic ideas. With accurate and quickly accessible analogies, a student can begin to make economic analysis a natural and routine part of her thinking and behavior. When a student develops a "feeling" for supply and demand analysis, for example, the tool moves beyond the graphic abstractions that constrain understanding, and becomes an internalized framework that enables understanding. Essentially, the teacher moves from the readily tangible and immediately relevant, to the theoretical and perhaps abstract, and then to the application. Too many materials begin with the second step, give a feeble example of application, and then ask the student, in follow-up exercises, to come up with his or her own "real world" examples of the concept. Oftentimes, the student's involvement in the process begins and ends with a cold and isolated encounter with theory. One might conclude that having students develop their own economic analogies is a great way to build content understanding. I don't believe this is the best use of class time, or that it is likely to be a very successful activity. The point of the economic analogy is not to be a lesson in and of itself, but to put an economic tool quickly in the hands of the student and let him experiment with it. A shop teacher can lecture for hours on the mechanics, functions, and use of a drill, but only with actual experience using the drill will the student be able to understand the tool well enough to actually put it into his service.

WHY EMAA IS EFFECTIVE

I have found that EMAA succeeds for several reasons: 1) Wonder: A high level of student interest is generated relatively quickly. Jars full of candy and aspirin, students tied up with rope, or a bathroom scale with its scale mysteriously covered are visual/visualize-able and draw students in and challenge them to "figure out" why these seemingly random and bizarre items and scenarios are being pulled out...in economics class. 2) Familiarity-Comfort: Because effective economic analogies and metaphors are always based on familiar ideas, students are made comfortable with economics as having immediate relevance to their world. 3) Parallelism: Every aspect of a good economic analogy parallels some aspect of the concept being taught. Thus, concepts can be taught as multifaceted, with each facet represented by a vivid yet familiar depiction. 4) Efficiency: Students learn the concept too quickly to become bored, and more material can be taught in greater depth. 5) Memorability: Economic analogies and metaphors are memorable for two, seemingly contradictory, reasons. On the one hand they are often bizarre or seemingly incongruous with an "economics class" (see "The Expenditure Multiplier and Rice Cooking" and "Ants Spitting in a Barrel" perfect competition and atomistic firms); yet the components of each are familiar and imaginable. I believe that this is a good formula for being both memorable and "remember-able."