Theory

A Common Business Management Model

The philosophy behind our education proposal belongs to a long tradition of interest-based education starting with the American philosopher John Dewey and his theory of “learning by doing“.

In “My Pedagogical Creed” (Dewey, 1897) he first spelled out his theory. Dewey believed that all students are unique learners. John Dewey believed that student interests should drive course planning (Dewey, 1938).

Dewey’s views were absorbed into the field of Psychology dealing with vocational-counseling, as pioneered by Edward Kellog Strong (1943). Strong demonstrated the significance of personal interest as an indicator of success in school and career.

Strong’s Psychological theory then morphed into a Sociological theory with writers like John Holland and his RIASEC model of Interest-based learning for Early Childhood Education.

Holland proposed to offer children the subjects that interest them most so that their motivation in schoolwork would increase. Their interest would provide the motivation needed to develop into goal direction, vigor and persistence through success.

We accept all that philosophy and research. We would add that all children are interested in survival — and even small children in inner cities might welcome a simple explanation of how local businesses earn money.

Our precise idea and approach is new. Starting in 2017 I began posting liberally about it inside QUORA, but my years of posts on this topic got no traction. Still, until proven otherwise, I remain convinced this idea can deliver on its lofty promises for social and economic progress.

Our basic idea is that all businesses — in all times and in all nations — have simple and uniform parts –– along with all their incredibly diverse parts.

Identifying the simple and uniform parts, and conveying this knowledge to small children — starting with the earliest grades — should enhance children’s confidence in the social system in which they live. It should also heighten the likelihood of their success in the legal urban economy after they graduate.

If this works, then Poverty will sharply reduce in a single generation. And without Poverty, political radicals will have no chaff to exploit. When most lower class people can finally enjoy earning their own living — the political burden in any Republic is likely to lighten up.

After the first generation of implementation, we predict a sharp reduction in Unemployment, Poverty, Gang Membership, Drug Addiction, and Child Poverty.

Our work builds on the foundation of the Early Childhood Education work of John Holland, who published his “interest-based” education theory, RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional “interest types”) in 1973.

Credit is also due to later research supporting RIASEC, especially SCCT (Social Cognitive Career Theory) published in 1994 by R.W. Lent, S.D. Brown, & G. Hackett,

Credit is also due to James Rounds and Rong Su (Illinois University) and their years of work as reflected in their article, “The Nature and Power of Interests” (2014).

Credit is also due to Early Childhood Educator, Ed Hidalgo, who guided me through his successful Junior High School program in El Cajon, CA, involving RIASEC, the World of Work, and BeAble software. His videos on YouTube and Ted–Talks are superb.

When speaking of Early Childhood Education, as I do here, I must also speak of DAP (Developmentally Appropriate Practices) which many educators demand. DAP programs are this project’s current task. .

I estimate (with a layman’s guess) that my material is appropriate for the 8th Grade, yet I want this material processed into education practices Appropriately for every age group, rather, for every Grade, rather for every Developmental range.

I say that children universally share one interest — namely, survival. Since survival in a city is hardly intuitive , and since 56% of the world’s population now lives in cities — survival is no longer as intuitive as it was during our countless Agricultural centuries. Our children need more socioeconomic clues earlier in life.

I invite volunteers with degrees and years of experience to advise me further regarding how to design a DAP curriculum.

The keystone of our Early Childhood Education Theory is our simple Business Management Model. We say it’s scientific, surprisingly complete, yet simple enough for grade school children. Here is the idea in a nutshell:

We can compare the inner structure of any business (small, medium, or large) with the skeletal structure of  mammals (small, medium, or large).  Mammals come in widely diverse variations and yet they share a basic skeletal structure (head, teeth, neck, rib-cage, backbone, limbs, frontal extremities, lower extremities ). 

Businesses come in widely diverse variations, too, and yet they all share a basic skeletal structure — we detect eight such basic business parts or departments – namely:

Now let’s back up a few steps to look at the big picture:

• For centuries people have proposed various solutions to the problems of widespread Unemployment and Poverty.   

• The promise of eliminating Poverty by using violence has motivated many episodes of open class warfare in the past 170 years. 

• Yet with the collapse of the USSR in 1991, suddenly, and for the first time, Capitalism became the predominant economic model all over the world.

• Suddenly, this generic business model became global — a bare skeleton of eight business departments for the smallest (one-person) businesses, all the way up to giant multi-national corporations – became available for every nation to see.

THE 21st CENTURY PROBLEM

• Even though Capitalism today is effectively global — the tragedies of Unemployment and Poverty continue to plague civilization globally. 

• The United Nations organization has long held that the solution to poverty is a crucial duty of modern times. 

• More recently, in United Nations Resolution 72/233 the General Assembly announced the 3rd UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2018–2027).  This is our theme, too – to End Poverty.

• Shall we in the 21st century – who wish urgently to conquer Unemployment and Poverty – return to failed political efforts of the 20th century?  We say no!  We can conquer Unemployment and Poverty entirely by peaceful means!

WAVE OF THE FUTURE

The solution, we say, is a business management education for children ages 5 to 17, made available freely over the Internet.  It will be age appropriate for anybody who wishes it.  Does anybody else offer anything remotely similar?

• A few companies today promise something similar, yet most of them charge money for their apps.  None of them, in our opinion, offers a viable business course for small children.

• Some promise courses in financial literacy, entrepreneurship, microeconomics, and macroeconomics for Grades 3-8.  In our experience, however, most children in those age groups couldn’t spell those words, much less understand the concepts. Another effort aimed at the top 2%.

• Others offer courses to small children in banking, supply chain, inflation, and other college-level courses.  It would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.

• Most focus on the top 2% of children (Advance Placement students) and we argue that such a focus only perpetuates our widening socioeconomic disparity. 

• We say that no other companies today feasibly meet the challenge of a complete, elementary course in business management for all children ages 5 to 17.

Besides — we propose to offer this program FREE to all children worldwide, using the principle of the brilliant, free, Khan Academy which teaches mathematics to millions of students worldwide over the Internet.

• FOCUS ON THE BOTTOM 50% OF STUDENTS

So, to improve economics for millions, our socioeconomic model emphasizes the bottom 50% of children ages 5-17.  (Only such an emphasis can stimulate an entire economy.

• Most children won’t get business management knowledge at home.  The People should disseminate this knowledge globally.

• If we emphasize our bottom 50% of students then we inoculate society (so to speak) from the disease of Poverty due to Unemployment.    

• If we emphasize our bottom 10% of students (i.e., future high school dropouts) then we might even begin to build a nation with virtually zero Poverty.

We predict that within the time it takes for today’s 5-year-olds to graduate high school we’ll see remarkable progress in national and international economic health. We also predict a remarkable progress in education, since children will increasingly identify with a school system that nurtures their own socioeconomic survival. 

• After 9 years of exposure to the simplest business management models, we expect that even students who drop-out after middle school will know how to be useful to businesses in their local marketplace.

• When every American 14-year-old knows the most basic ideas of business management, then even our dropouts will be ready to confront some level of the local workplace after (sadly) they drop out..

• We predict — all employees of the future will quickly adapt to new workplaces and become productive quickly — because they already know the generic system of business management.

That’s why we say that it’s now feasible to abolish Unemployment and its Poverty worldwide in the 21st century.

WHY IT’S UNIQUE

Our model for childhood business education online is unique.  It is different from all other childhood online courses regarding financial literacy or entrepreneurship.  This is because our model is so simple as well as verifiably universal. 

• Only a universal model has the potential to enlighten all children about how most of the world earns money legitimately. 

• It is universal because every business in the world — and in history — has shared the same abstract structure; easy enough for children to understand.

• The confidence and success of individual students could raise the morale of their whole family. As it expands, It could raise the morale of the entire community; it could raise the morale of the entire nation.

• We also expect this education to yield sharp declines in crime, gang membership, drug abuse, racism, child hunger, and political radicals (who exploit the wounds of Poverty and widespread Unemployment).  Our socioeconomic ideal is a world of Zero Unemployment and Zero Poverty.

• If we can do this, then we also predict that the central motive for violent politics will fade away so that violent politics will also fade away.

SUMMARY

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We say that a nation without Unemployment and Poverty is plausible today.  

We say that a nation with a fraction of crime, gang membership, drug abuse, racism, child hunger, and political radicals is also plausible.   

When other nations see this program succeed dramatically – they will imitate, and they will also win – and eventually the world will win.

That’s our theory and our vision.

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