Teachers Awarded For Teaching Economics Lessons

Ten Arkansas teachers have received $1,000 cash prizes and a little recognition for incorporating economics principles into their teaching.

The 2013 Bessie B. Moore Awards were presented by the nonprofit Economics Arkansas at the Clinton Library Thursday. Moore founded the organization that became Economics Arkansas in 1962.

Economics Arkansas trains teachers to teach real-life economics skills. Its programs include The Stock Market Game Program and EconChallenge, a high school competition where students demonstrate their knowledge of economics and personal finance.

Three award winners came from Fort Smith’s Woods Elementary School: Kimberly Been, Jenny Holland and Jennifer Howald. Howald’s class demonstrated their project: Economics Slam Cafe. The class wrote poetry in a variety of styles about economics concepts and then organized a performance that profited $550. Former Woods principal and master economics teacher Stanley Wells received the lifetime achievement award.

Teacher Lydia Brumfield’s Beebe Middle School class also demonstrated their project: a consumer products fair they organized during a parent-teacher conference. Students tested various brands in side-by-side comparisons. (Among them, Coke beat Pepsi with 60 percent of the vote.)

Other teacher winners were Jessica Culver of Ozark Junior High School; Michele Jackson of Siloam Springs High School; Heather Dorsey of the eSTEM High Public Charter School; Michelle Wallis of Elmdale Elementary School in Springdale; and Linda Haley of the Crossroads Center in the Rogers School District.

Executive Director Sue Owens said in an interview that integrating economics into public schools can be difficult because so much of an emphasis has been placed on reading, math and science. However, she said the recent Great Recession “has definitely raised the awareness that there is more of a need for citizens to be economically and financially literate.”

During his remarks, Arkansas Education Commissioner Dr. Tom Kimbrell noted that this year’s senior class was the first to graduate with a requirement to study economics in high school. That requirement was passed by the State Board of Education with encouragement from Economics Arkansas and first went into effect for ninth-grade students beginning in 2009-10.