Build a Better Box

Over the past decade, I’ve witnessed students become increasingly stressed as their performance seems to carry more weight in determining a less predictable future. They frantically check boxes to fit into a more narrowly defined “box” of what might guarantee success.

More APs might equal acceptance at a prestigious university; high scores in traditionally rigorous and respected disciplines might secure an affluent career path. This endless pursuit, coupled with the knowledge that they will graduate college in a generation shouldering unprecedented debt, leads to a justifiably stressed, if not bleak, outlook.

No one deserves to start out on his or her journey bearing such an immense burden. Instead, students need the knowledge and skills to build their own future rather than check boxes to fit into someone else’s definition of their future. That’s where entrepreneurship education comes in.

Often iconic millionaires come to mind when many people are asked to name an entrepreneur. But what about the small business owners who are meeting a critical community need? What about the enterprising artists who change a community’s perspective with large scale public installations? To stop at one definition would not do the concept justice.

As one student shared in his final project for my class at Hawken school, “Merriam Webster Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as ‘one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.’ [However,] from what I have observed, a successful entrepreneur is someone who possesses a growth mindset, has perseverance, embraces failure, understands that ideas can come from anywhere, and works well with others.”

I couldn’t agree more. Entrepreneurial education empowers students to question and form their own critical understanding of the world. Through identifying and researching unsolved problems students identify ways they can help the world while clarifying their own areas of interest and contribution. By co-creating solutions with stakeholders and building viable business ventures, students gain the knowledge and skills to turn many opportunities into successful futures.

Rather than trying to predict the future, students in Entrepreneurship programs learn to focus on what they can control to solve real problems and meet real needs, gaining confidence to create the future.

Lessons from Stanford

Five years ago, the Stanford Social Innovation Review published an entire issue dedicated to the rise of entrepreneurial education and how it empowers change in society. The Introduction states there has been:

“A dramatic increase in demand for university courses in social innovation and social entrepreneurship over the past few years has presented university educators with two big challenges: 1) To develop a solid understanding of precisely what social entrepreneurs and innovators actually do, and therefore, what they need to know, and 2) To identify the best ways to organize courses and what to include in terms of course content” (1).

As shown in this publication, the last decade has seen a rise in entrepreneurial education in higher education. And yet K-12 education is slow to follow the lead of social innovation as confirmed by the leading entrepreneurial magazine: “While society innovates, our K-12 schools have remained stagnant. As a result, they are not graduating the doers, makers and cutting-edge thinkers the world needs…But most institutions do not teach what should be the centerpiece of a contemporary education: entrepreneurship, the capacity to not only start companies but also to think creatively and ambitiously” (2).

During my first year working with students at Hawken, the class of mostly seniors partnered with WISR, a company that was developing a new college mentoring software platform that aimed to connect university students with alumni who could guide their career development. My Entrepreneurship students were given the challenge to create a marketing plan to engage college students in this platform as the alumni response was enthusiastic but college students were more worried about their current classes and were not taking advantage of the help available.

In her final Capstone project for the class, one student wrote that:

“…going into this course I believed that I had zero creativity skills whatsoever. I had the mindset that only certain people were creative and the rest were not. Traditional learning often lacks creativity and makes many kids including myself feel as if they do not fit in the creative type pile. I was that student who loved instruction and guidelines….In the beginning of this challenge, we were asked to choose a book to review, and I chose to read the book Creative Confidence by David and Tom Kelley. From this book, I learned that anyone could be creative — including me. In order to do this, though, you have to be willing to take risks and throw your ideas out there. I believe that I began to demonstrate this change in my way of thinking during the third business challenge with WISR.”

I can’t imagine a better outcome from real-world problem solving than a student not only developing her creativity but also her confidence from learning to embrace risk.

The Power of Empathy

Not only did the WISR business challenge teach students important skills, but they also learned about the disparities in graduation rates for first-generation college students. In researching which markets really needed a mentoring platform like WISR, students developed deeper empathy for a group of students who differed greatly from the tradition Hawken student.

In fact, while entrepreneurship education starts with providing students a creative and confident alternative to the high stress of the most successful students, perhaps its most meaningful result is how it also serves as a model for positive change for students who struggle, providing a catalyst for social change.

Many of the business challenges that the Entrepreneurial Studies class has tackled in the past have centered on some of our world’s most pressing problems. From creating more opportunity for women in technology fields to alternatives to carcinogenic weed killers to a solution for food deserts in urban neighborhoods, Entrepreneurial Studies students are not afraid to wrestle with tough problems in order to help viable solutions find a successful future.

As it should be. Practitioners and scholars see exposure to entrepreneurship education as a tool for greater social engagement: “Because entrepreneurship can, and should, promote economic opportunity,” notes one study, “ it can serve as an agent of social justice” (3). Examples abound:

• Julian Young, 29, and a drug dealer facing a 15-year prison term had his life turn around when a mentor encouraged him to embrace his entrepreneurial spirit. “Years later, Young is the founder and executive director of The Start Center for Entrepreneurship, an Omaha-based organization that helps women and minorities launch businesses” (4).
• Sixteen-year-old prodigy Erik Finman, whose teacher told him to drop out and work at McDonald’s, later founded the video-chat tutoring program Botangle and the startup Intern for a Day (5).

As Nobel Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, stated in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, “a social business leader will pick a problem, design a business to solve that problem, and take it from there—he or she will not just give the money and sit for the results to come” (6). Education should, therefore, be focused on how to “reach and empower the most destitute and marginalized people” through forms of social business.

Entrepreneurial education provides one way to shift education forward and prepare students for a more satisfying future while empowering them today. For the highly motivated and stressed students to the disenfranchised and frustrated students, the knowledge and skills of an engaging, entrepreneurial education will allow students to stop checking boxes to fit into a pre-defined box and instead build their own future.

1. Lawrence, T., Phillips, N., & Tracey, P. (2012, November 16). Entrepreneurial Education. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved from https://ssir.org/articles/entry/entrepreneurial_education
2. Rodov, F., & Truong, S. (2015, April 14). Why Schools Should Teach Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur. Retrieved January 4, 2019, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245038
3. Lawrence, T., Phillips, N., & Tracey, P. (2012, November 16). Entrepreneurial Education. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved from https://ssir.org/articles/entry/entrepreneurial_education
4. Rodov, F., & Truong, S. (2015, April 14). Why Schools Should Teach Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur. Retrieved January 4, 2019, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245038
5. Rodov, F., & Truong, S. (2015, April 14). Why Schools Should Teach Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur. Retrieved January 4, 2019, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245038
6. Lawrence, T., Phillips, N., & Tracey, P. (2012, November 16). Entrepreneurial Education. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved from https://ssir.org/articles/entry/entrepreneurial_education