Quelling the Fire of Educational Inequities through Entrepreneurship Education

Quelling the Fire of Educational Inequities through Entrepreneurship Education
Dr. Beth Goldstein, Director, Babson Youth Impact Lab
 
Not to sound like "Chicken Little," the folkloric character who created panic declaring that the "sky was falling" after an acorn fell on his head, but it seems a bit like the world is on fire, suffocating the aspirations of future generations. After almost three years of a global pandemic, we now face a growing educational crisis: widening gaps in equal access to quality education, increased global learning poverty, surging mental health issues, and decreases in resiliency levels amongst youth around the world. These critical issues will play a key role in the future of our planet on a personal, local, national, and global level.
 
We must ensure the fire of educational inequities does not consume our youth. But how? You have the power to create a more equitable world by strengthening your own ability to cultivate entrepreneurial youth leaders. With over 100 years of experience in this field, Babson College has developed a methodology for teaching young people to see themselves as changemakers. By partnering with educators and schools, such as the Lincoln School in Costa Rica, the Youth Impact Lab at Babson trains educators to deliver our youth entrepreneurial changemaker program, EPIC (Entrepreneurship Program for Innovators & Changemakers). EPIC builds social-emotional skills that have been shown to decrease mental health issues and increase resiliency levels. 
 
We use a learner-centric, “learn by doing” approach to teach young people how to be leaders, work in teams, and develop a social impact project that addresses a problem they see or experience in their community that is aligned to one or more of the United Nations Global Goals. We’d like to share seven tips to increase your students' agency:

  1. Incorporate Experiential Learning: Make sure your students participate in situated, real-life activities, such as observing and talking with potential stakeholders of their social impact project.
     
  2. Create Scaffolded Entrepreneurship Courses: Short programs (a few days) oftentimes do not allow for changes in students’ behaviors, actions, and beliefs. Build your program so students can build and strengthen their skills and confidence over time with your support.
     
  3. Integrate Social Impact Concepts Framed by the UN Global Goals: Initiatives that create social value and economic value can strengthen youth's agency to address local and global problems. Programs should teach youth how to deploy an entrepreneurial mindset to address the complex issues addressed by the Global Goals such as social justice, poverty, and sustainability.
     
  4. Align Entrepreneurship Content with Appropriate Pedagogy: It's important to balance business concepts with leadership-building activities. This allows students to learn how they can turn an idea into action and make it feasible and sustainable.
     
  5. Integrate Team-Based Learning Activities: The lone wolf entrepreneur is a myth. Learning is social, and it's critical that young people learn to work with and through others.
     
  6. Require Deep Reflection in a Safe, Student-Centric Environment: Reflection is a critical element of learning, as is ensuring students feel safe reflecting on what worked and what did not. Failure is a part of the learning process, and the younger students learn this, the more they will embrace testing and piloting ideas.
     
  7. Measure Your Impact: We often ask students if they enjoyed the class or if their teacher was accessible. While those are important outputs, we should focus on outcomes. They are the true measure of changes in beliefs, attitudes, and behavior—critical for growth. Outcomes that we measure, before and after our program, include entrepreneurial self-efficacy, learning self-efficacy, growth mindset, grit, social awareness, social entrepreneurial intention, and critical thinking. We use the findings to continuously improve our programs.

The Youth Impact Lab at Babson focuses on helping educators deliver learner-centric programs that strengthen their students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy, critical thinking, social-emotional skills, and social intention. To learn more about us and how we might help you cultivate entrepreneurial youth leaders, visit us at Babson.edu/YouthImpact or contact me, Beth Goldstein at bgoldstein@babson.edu.