Hawaii Catholic Schools: 21st Century Skills series - Entrepreneurialism

Hawaii Catholic Schools has identified a series of skills, gleaned from the work of Tony Wagner and the p21.org.

One of these 21st Century skills is Entrepreneurialism.   The Webster-Merriam online dictionary defines entrepreneur as "a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money." Entrepreneurialism is identified as a noun.  For Hawaii Catholic Schools and our students, we define entrepreneurialism as "undertaking the process of creating and/or organizing original ideas into functional applications."  This can demonstrated through students starting/beginning/creating a business and demonstrating in their process of creating that they understand and accept  the inherent risk of failure that lies beneath the surface of their work.  

This idea of taking inherent risk during the creation phase is a bit of a foreign idea in schools, where getting 100% is considered the pinnacle of success.  Reframing Failure is a short 5-minute video posted by Edutopia (a FANTASTIC resource for educators and parents!!!) that asks us to rethink how we see learning - and failing.  Schools have spoon-fed our students a steady stream of "give us the right answer" or "there is only one answer." Teachers tell students that they are wrong, if they miss it, or tell them they are right if they get it correct.  As a system, we have consistently been deficient in developing any kind of exploratory or analytical or entrepreneurial skills in our students.  Ask students, or many of our teachers, to come up with a new idea, and most will ask for the "right answer."  Or worse, they want to know what every single little step is so they can "get the right answer!"  Very few will risk and move forward trying anything innovative or new.  

We have placed such a huge value on getting things correct, that we have failed to develop a skill that literally drives our society: Entrpreneurialsim.  To be entrepreneurial, you have to develop sound thinking, research skills, presentation skills, business acumen, math skills, etc., etc.  The key difference between this list of descriptors  and how they look inside and outside of school is that inside school we are developing many of these skills (and actually are doing a relatively good job of it!) but we are doing it without the connection to failure.  Most of our students leave school possessing everything necessary to succeed and make choices, except that many of them have not experienced failure.  An entrepreneurial spirit embraces failure as a valuable learning tool.  The ability to understand and assess risk and reward.  To look ahead and see potential pitfalls and plan to address them in case they show up.  These are characteristics of an entrepreneurial mind and these are the skills we need to actively seek to develop in our students in Hawaii Catholic Schools!

Please share how you are developing ENTREPRENEURIALISM  in your students!
–