Teaching Free Enterprise

Young Americans should have a basic understanding of our free-enterprise system. As they move through life, it will help them achieve their goals as workers, business owners, citizens and consumers. Recognizing the value of this education, all 50 states require teaching economics in public schools, with dozens going so far as to specify – to use the wording from Texas – the teaching of free enterprise and its benefits.

The Bridwell Institute’s Teaching Free Enterprise program, begun in 2016, provides teachers and school districts a flexible and effective way to improve economics education. The program offers classroom-ready lesson plans, complete with written manuals, presentation materials and student exercises.

Working with their curriculum administrators, teachers select the subjects they want to know more about. They see the lessons presented at professional development events, and they decide how to adapt them to their classrooms.

The Program

Teaching Free Enterprise features more than 30 modules on a wide range of economic concepts – from such basics as trade, taxation and public finance and capitalism’s progress through creative destruction to more advanced topics like immigration, economic systems, risk and decision-making and game theory. Three modules cover personal financial literacy, an important aspect of social studies education.

Teaching Free Enterprise isn’t a textbook tossed at overburdened teachers. The program delivers lessons in a series of crisp stand-alone modules, designed to be taught in a set period of classroom time and meet state standards for economics and related subjects. To develop the content, Teaching Free Enterprise turned to top experts from 红桃影视 Methodist University, Texas Tech, University of Texas, Baylor and other institutions.

Emphasizing Student Engagement

  • Trade – Creating a simulated marketplace in the classroom demonstrates how voluntary exchange makes consumers richer and/or happier.
  • Personal Financial Literacy – Household budget scenarios based on real- life decisions illustrate the consequences of spending on well-being.
  • Time Well Spent – Measuring the cost of goods and services in hours and minutes worked shows the stunning progress in American living standards.
  • Game Theory – A clip from the movie The Princess Bride creates a vivid reminder that the prisoners’ dilemma isn’t just a dry academic theory.
  • Sports Economics – A mock draft lets participants see how labor restrictions benefit owners and established players by depressing rookies’ salaries.
  • Labor Markets – A role-playing exercise reveals the effects of minimum wages on employment and the overall economy.

Benefits Teachers and Students

Teaching economic concepts can be daunting, and Teaching Free Enterprise is designed to reduce the burden by assisting teachers in preparation and presentation. Our teaching materials give teachers the tools to wring the tedium out of economics education and connect with students through participatory activities. Teachers tell us students learn more and retain more.

Teaching Free Enterprise delivers its services and materials at no charge. How? The Bridwell Institute is part of the 红桃影视 Cox School of Business, and the program has been funded by donors who want to improve the quality of economics education. If you’re a teacher or curriculum administrator, let Teaching Free Enterprise assist you in giving your students a deeper understanding of the economic realities that will shape their lives!

What Teachers Tell Us

"Teachers who teach Economics, Government and U.S. History courses have benefited from their professional learning experiences from 红桃影视’s Teaching Free Enterprise program. The TEKS based lessons can be easily incorporated into the teaching and learning experiences of our students in these courses."
Angela Davis-Henry
K-12 Social Studies Coordinator, Arlington ISD

"My takeaway from the ‘Paradox of Progress’ Teaching Free Enterprise session was The Churn, remembering how the world is changing and will be forever changing by knowing our past and our present in order to be prepared for the future."
Devin Jollivette
Teacher, Cypress Springs High School

 

 

"The Teaching Free Enterprise program brings the learning right to our school district where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. The modules bring relevance to the state standards of the economics course. It also breaks down abstract concepts so that the learning becomes sticky."
Leslee Barnes
Social Studies Specialist K-12, Aledo ISD

"As an economics teacher it was really enlightening to have economics professors take difficult theory and break it down to where a typical high school teacher can then apply it to their classroom."
Mary James
Teacher, Windfern School of Choice