1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION

This syllabus is intended to help teachers of high school economics explain economic principles in the classroom. However, it contains many suggestions for introducing and explaining economics to younger students, as well as material to challenge older students and even adult readers. In any case, many ideas are included for varying the material— by dramatizing and simplifying explanations for younger students or “enriching” them for more mature students with extracurricular readings, papers and projects.

2. WHAT IS ECONOMICS?

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

1. The teacher might start the first class by asking the students to answer some or all of the questions appearing on pp. 7-9. Make it clear that this is not a test of any kind. The teacher may hold on to the papers and be guided by them in deciding what to emphasize. At the end of the course, ask the same questions over again, and then compare and discuss with the students their two sets of answers.

3. THE NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL—VALUES AND ACTIONS

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

1. To help students realize that economics is about how-we-try-to-get-what-we-want-with-what-we-have, ask each student to list a dozen or so things he or she wants to do or to have in the short-run or immediate future, the medium-run, i.e., next week, next month, next year, or the still longer-run of several years hence, etc. Then discuss what each goal will call for in the way of (a) money, (b) equipment, (c) effort and (d) time.

4. PRIVATE PROPERTY AND EXCHANGE

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

1. Write one or all of these quotations on the blackboard, or distribute them on mimeographed sheets:

a. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.

5. SOCIAL COOPERATION AND THE MARKET

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

1. Discuss with the students their experiences with pets or wild animals. Has any of them ever noticed animals engaging in what might be interpreted as (a) purposive, conscious action? (b) specialization? concentration on a single task? (c) division of labor? (d) exchange? or (e) cooperation?

6. PRICES, PRICING

Suggested Activities

This Unit on market prices and pricing is one of the most important in the syllabus. The pricing auctions described below provide a change of pace from more traditional classroom work and should be fun. They demonstrate that market prices (a) are based on the subjective values and actions of the individuals concerned and (b) help to direct goods and services to the persons who value them most. Ample time should be spent on this Unit.

7. SAVINGS, TOOLS AND PRODUCTION

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

Several of the activities outlined below—suggested here in anticipation of Unit 8, “The Entrepreneur and the Profit and Loss System,” and Unit 11, “Competition, ‘Big Business’ and Monopoly”—take time to carry out. Therefore, if they are to be attempted, the sooner started the better. In addition to the brief description of each activity here, see also the pertinent sections in those two later Units.

8. THE ENTREPRENEUR AND THE PROFIT AND LOSS SYSTEM

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

1. To call attention to the inevitability of change in the world, have each student recall major changes affecting his or her personal life and family since the start of their respective careers in school. In other words, ask each to list significant changes since they were five or six years old. Remind them that the world holds over two billion persons, each of whom is also always facing and trying to cope with changes from time to time.

9. LABOR, WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

1. Repetition is essential in teaching—as any teacher well knows. These catchy phrases, used so far in this syllabus, bear constant repeating to review the significant economic concepts they describe:

ARMCHAIR METHOD—the method of developing theories through the use of deduction. Economists adopt the “armchair method” when they think, reason and use logic to explain the actions of individuals on the basis of a priori assumptions (Unit 2).