Drawing from years of extensive firsthand experience in the education system, Adam dives deep into the intricate dynamics between education and entrepreneurship and dissects the flaws within our current educational framework.
From systemic issues that hinder empowerment to the lack of financial literacy and emotional coping skills, he addresses six critical areas where the education system falls short in nurturing the potential of young minds.
But here's the intriguing twist—the limitations and shortcomings of our curriculums can serve as a powerful catalyst for a future wave of purpose-driven entrepreneurs. By shining a light on these challenges, Adam reveals how they inadvertently fuel the hunger for meaningful entrepreneurship among the youth.
Tune in to gain valuable insights into the ways our educational system can hinder or inspire the next generation of changemakers, innovators, and visionaries.
Drawing from years of extensive firsthand experience in the education system, Adam dives deep into the intricate dynamics between education and entrepreneurship and dissects the flaws within our current educational framework.
From systemic issues that hinder empowerment to the lack of financial literacy and emotional coping skills, he addresses six critical areas where the education system falls short in nurturing the potential of young minds.
But here's the intriguing twist—the limitations and shortcomings of our curriculums can serve as a powerful catalyst for a future wave of purpose-driven entrepreneurs. By shining a light on these challenges, Adam reveals how they inadvertently fuel the hunger for meaningful entrepreneurship among the youth.
Tune in to gain valuable insights into the ways our educational system can hinder or inspire the next generation of changemakers, innovators, and visionaries.
has a byproduct of how, at scale, the education system is failing our children. The kids are like what is this? There's gotta be something different. Hey friends, welcome to Voice and Impact, an honest podcast about the journey of entrepreneurship. We're not here to tell you how to live your life. We're here to have real conversations about real things. My name is Adam and I'm so grateful you're here with us. So today I want to share with you how the education system is killing the future of entrepreneurship and how it will save it. And what I'm about to share is the result of years of studying and being involved in the education system as a teacher. I'm going to split this up into two general categories. The categories are the world that we learn in school and the real world, and I'm going to disposition that over the idea of entrepreneurship and how these ideas might influence one's ability to be or become an entrepreneur. So in the school world, it's organized in a very siloed way. We've got math, social studies, science, english, the gym, all of these different rooms that we enter and focus only on the one, something. We're taught that things are compartmentalized as a result of that. But the real world is a much more holistic picture. Everything is interconnected. There's an overemphasis on standardized testing and there's an overemphasis on it because that's how schools are funded. So it's a systematic issue. But what it creates is an environment where quantitative information is more valuable than qualitative information. To simplify that, quantitative information is numbers three, six, seven. If there's a quantity involved. Qualitative information is ideas. So if I had the number three three of what? What is the meaning behind that number? Could be three bananas, could be three million dollars. Those are two very different ideas and we're really good at the qualitative facts memorization. Seven plus three is 10. You know, 26 plus five is 31. We're drilled with that stuff all the time. When it came to experimenting with or understanding the qualitative, the ideas behind them, that really never happened. That limits the future entrepreneur's ability to provide themselves with the context of the information, because we're always inputting new information and then responding to that new information, and so when we're responding, when we have that qualitative context, it informs and empowers us to make better decisions. They do a really great job at teaching us that the answers are external. The teacher knows the answers to the test. You can always get the answer in this textbook It's either right or it's wrong in the real world? Sure, i think there's a lot of answers that can be discovered through curiosity, and we can learn a lot from other people, but in the real world, the answers are within. Only you know what you want out of life and only you can build it. Fostering that intrinsic motivation is altogether lacking in the education system. In school we're not really taught how to advocate for ourselves. We had to have our parents advocate for us, and some of us didn't have parents who had the capacity to advocate for us. We're the only ones that can. I think we could be doing a better job at teaching our kids how to advocate for themselves. Back to the answers are outside of us, and this isn't to diminish the real experience of ADHD, but there's a lot of data that suggests that we are overprescribing in a significant way, adhd medication to our children because they're having a hard time focusing whatever. I think that teaches us that, again, the answer is outside of ourselves. That appeal may fix my still developing skill of focus, and I think that is of great disadvantage to service, to the future of the entrepreneurs of this country and this world. We also really only ever deal with kids our own age. Right. How often do third graders and sixth graders get together? Not often, but that creates a delusion of community, because in the real world you're dealing with people of a wide variety of ages, especially as an entrepreneur, and that cross-generational relationship building is a skill set that is altogether missing in our education system. We do a pretty poor job of teaching our kids how to cope. I would say that's my assessment when I was a teacher. Coping is a really exceptional skill set to have, navigating the storm of uncertainty associated with entrepreneurship, and part of those coping mechanisms are simply understanding how you're feeling now to communicate how you're feeling. Emotional intelligence, stress management Whenever I'm dealing with stress, i need to get clear on my priorities Or I have a hard time making progress. Financial literacy In school, really, the only experience I had dealing with money or learning about money was when this one guy came in in a suit and talked about compound interest and how you need to start putting away 20, 30, $40 a week right now while you're young, because when you get old that means you'll be rich, and don't you want to be rich when you're old? That's really the only time we talked about money. Never had any experience getting a chunk of change, like pretend chunk of change and like using that to manage an idea, right Like? one of the things I did when I was a teacher is I gave everybody a budget of $100,000. They were a band, they were going on a world tour. Stadiums had a number of fans that you would grow if you played at that stadium and then we would auction them off. It was like a 10 week thing. They were all making decisions on budget and management and how much would they pay for which stadiums to optimize those results or whatever. But that's like more real world financial ideas The day to day of what am I doing with this influx and the outflux of my financial energy And that's not discussed at all. And that's of great disservice because I feel, like a lot of the entrepreneurs that I know their biggest disadvantage is they don't understand money. And if you don't understand money as an entrepreneur, it's going to get hard And so a lot of people lose faith and I think our current education system is creating that. In closing, i think it's also doing one really important thing Has a byproduct of how, at scale, the education system is failing our children. The kids are like What is this? There's got to be something different about this. I'm going to go online and look, look about a different way of building my life, because this current when I was told just doesn't make sense to me. And as a reaction to that environment, it's creating this new wave of entrepreneurs who care a lot, and I think that's really going to positively affect the world, and I think you might be one of them if you're tuned in into this. So here's a question for you How could we improve the education system? What could we be doing to empower these young minds of entrepreneurs, these future backbone people of our our economic system? Thanks for tuning in to some of my rambles and real time thoughts on the education system and how it affects entrepreneurs. Thanks for watching.