Area educators encouraged to think like entrepreneurs

Northwest Arkansas area educators learned about teaching entrepreneurship to K-12 students and took part in entrepreneurial mindset activities during a recent event in Fayetteville.

Nearly 50 educators registered for the one-day professional development session Connecting Educators to Entrepreneurs hosted by Young Entrepreneur Institute at University School. The Cleveland-based entrepreneurship education and experiences organization for K-12 students expanded into Northwest Arkansas after receiving more than $1.21 million from the Walton Family Foundation in 2023.

Marion Dunagan, program director for the institute’s Northwest Arkansas initiative, encouraged attendees to think like entrepreneurs and to implement something they learned at the session in their classrooms this fall.

“I want you to see yourself as an entrepreneur,” Dunagan said. “You are already approaching things like an entrepreneur.”

Marsha Masters, associate director at Economics Arkansas, cited a Heartland Forward report emphasizing the importance of teaching entrepreneurial thinking to K-12 students.

“Whether they start a business, become an owner of a business, they still need to think like an entrepreneur,” Masters said. “We all do.”

Jeff Amerine, founder and managing director of Startup Junkie Consulting, said a Harrison High School teacher inspired him to be creative and helped lead him to become an entrepreneur. Amerine said he learned to be dissatisfied with the status quo, to ask why, and to problem solve. He said the entrepreneurial mindset is about identifying areas for improvement in the world and taking action.

He said he was 32 with two children and one on the way when he started his first business. He might have started his first business sooner had an entrepreneurial mindset been taught more throughout his school years. Such skills can help students become innovators.

“We’re competing on a worldwide basis,” Amerine said. “And the one thing the U.S. has had I would save over the last 50 years as an advantage is the fact that we’re not afraid to take risks. We’re not afraid to think differently. We’re not afraid to innovate. We need to continue that. It only continues if you all do what you do every day, which is to educate the best and the brightest, bring them up and getting them the tools to be successful.”

FEATURED SPEAKER
Scott Mann, director of education and training at VentureLab in Austin, Texas, was a featured speaker and led attendees through the first day of an eight-week cohort on entrepreneurship education. This included attendees participating in multiple activities related to entrepreneurship that they could offer to students.

In the first activity, attendees formed groups and used their bodies to make a frozen image of a house or tableau. Mann asked each group about the features of their house, including roofs, walls, doors, mailbox and chimney.

When he asked to show what a home is, the groups were more abstract, some forming hearts. Mann said attendees can ask their students what they see when they do this activity.

“What do you think they’re showing us? Mann asked. “Love,” attendees said. “Love, belonging, what a home is,” Mann said.

The groups also showed what entrepreneurship is, with one group forming a chain. Mann said they have flexibility, they’re helping and they’re connected. There’s strategy, conflict and struggle. The group said they were demonstrating risk-taking, with the woman at the end of the chain standing at the edge of a cliff and the others holding her back from falling.

Mann also emphasized the importance of creating value.

“You create value for your students every day,” he said. “You put in a lot of work, time and struggle, and you go to the edge of the cliff to try something new. And you step in front of that audience, and you deliver that value to them every single day. And that’s not easy. That is very hard.” Along the way, educators do “market research” and make changes to improve the value they provide to students.

YIPPEE PRODUCTS
Mann also discussed some of the products and resources available on the online platform YIPPEE Exchange to help educators teach students about entrepreneurship, including mindset cards. The deck of cards includes pictures to help spark creativity during activities. One of those activities culminated in a 30-second pitch competition, where groups presented a product they created using the cards.

He said one of VentureLab’s strong beliefs is “starting with play, giving students an opportunity, especially with the conversations around wanting to create space for students to communicate, to think, to struggle a little bit. And this is a great, fun, short amount of time way to create that opportunity.”

Mann also led attendees through a workbook of strategies to grow entrepreneurial thinking. This included attendees setting goals, such as personal and professional challenges, and writing down a challenge statement that highlights the goal they want to achieve. Attendees discussed what achieving their goals would look like.

PANEL DISCUSSION
The event also included a panel discussion on implementing entrepreneurship in classrooms, moderated by Ilene Frankel, executive director of Young Entrepreneur Institute. Panelists were area educators.

Amy Mileham started an after-school entrepreneurs club with fourth- and fifth-graders at Grace Hill Elementary in Rogers. Students meet weekly, create business plans, produce products, and are responsible for marketing. Each May, the school hosts a market, which typically earns about $3,000. This year, the students chose to use earnings to buy animals through Heifer International and books for classrooms. The money also supports the club.

Nikole Townsend said she recently taught an entrepreneurship unit to fifth-grade students at LISA Academy. The students created candy businesses, developed business plans, logos, and product packaging, and conducted advertising, all while being taught how to sell their products. They hosted an informal Shark Tank, with an area business owner, administrator and teacher as the sharks.

“The children did their presentation and got some feedback,” Townsend said. “That’s really what I wanted them to have, was just feedback from adults.”

She added they also received feedback from other students, but it was mixed, with the younger students providing harsher feedback.

“They learned a lot of social skills,” Townsend said. “We worked on how to give a good handshake, looking someone in the eye. It was excellent communication skills practice, and so just all around, it turned out wonderful.”

Jessica Imel, principal of the Ignite Program for Bentonville Schools, said some students participated in a startup lab in the spring. They received on-site coaching and mentorship, made and researched their products, created a website and learned how to sell their products.

She said the 12 students started nine businesses. One student’s jewelry business had a “viral” video on TikTok and earned $3,000 by the end of the semester.

“She said she’s got stuff all over her mom’s kitchen table right now trying to figure out how to fulfill orders,” Imel said. “But for us, we’re trying to help students that are entrepreneurial… They will have this experience and these skills of communication and problem solving, into general observation and empathy, and thinking about the customer that no matter what they end up doing, they can take that experience into whatever is next for them.”