Imagine teaching a class of forty two 4th grade students a lesson on consumers
and producers while speaking only in English. That may not seem strange to you at all. Now focus the frame on the faces of these young learners and you would encounter the
deer in the headlights look. Why? The economic concepts are readily comprehensible. The answer lies in the fact that these learners live in
South Africa where there are 11 official languages and all learners spend their first four years of school being taught in their native tongues. I witnessed just such a lesson on August 7 at the Siphambano Primary School in the Mtubatuba area of
KwaZulu-Natal Province. (The heart of Zulu land.) The teacher, Mr. TE Buthelezi, had prepared an interactive lesson for his Zulu speaking learners (in South Africa students are called learners) as part of the economics based instruction that occurs in all schools grades R-9. (R is the equivalent of our Kindergarten).
My name is Amy Hennessy and I teach the state mandated course in economics as well as AP Micro and AP Macroeconomics at
Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School in Augusta, Georgia. Thanks to the support and encouragement I received from Mike Raymer, Dr. Glenn Blankenship, and Dr. David Martin at the Georgia Council I applied for and was accepted to participate in this year's
Council for Economic Education Study Tour to South Africa. There were 24 U.S. teachers with our four tour leaders as well as six South African educators who spent an amazing ten days together in South Africa observing the
multiplier effect of the Cooperative Education Exchange's(CEEP) program called
Training of Trainers. This exchange involves select South African teachers being trained to teach economic concepts with Council materials by U.S. professors of economics, like Dr. John Brock of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Once trained these "trainers" then conduct workshops and provide support for their South African counterparts who in turn use these outcomes based lessons with their learners.
I will be sharing my experiences, photos, and videos over the next few posts. Then I will be posting some of my thoughts and tips on teaching both AP Micro and Macroeconomics. I look forward to sharing what has been the highlight of my professional career with all of you. Please feel free to leave comments and any queries you may have.
Got HOPE? No, not this hope, and not that Hope. I am talking about this HOPE. According to this AJC article dark days are ahead for HOPE scholarship recipients. I smell a good lesson on supply and demand in that article somewhere. 
How many of you use GEO Fred (aka- Geographic Federal Reserve Economic DataEconomic) to find economic data for class?
Remember when it was enough to just make really great music?
and producers while speaking only in English. That may not seem strange to you at all. Now focus the frame on the faces of these young learners and you would encounter the deer in the headlights look. Why? The economic concepts are readily comprehensible. The answer lies in the fact that these learners live in South Africa where there are 11 official languages and all learners spend their first four years of school being taught in their native tongues. I witnessed just such a lesson on August 7 at the Siphambano Primary School in the Mtubatuba area of KwaZulu-Natal Province. (The heart of Zulu land.) The teacher, Mr. TE Buthelezi, had prepared an interactive lesson for his Zulu speaking learners (in South Africa students are called learners) as part of the economics based instruction that occurs in all schools grades R-9. (R is the equivalent of our Kindergarten).
Diane Basham of McIntosh High School we salute you! At a workshop yesterday Ms. Basham mentioned THIS amazing debt clock. Wow. I gotta say that this one is the mother of all debt clocks. I have said it before and I will say it again- show this to the kids and they will be instantly hooked, worried, confused, interested, mad and maybe even a little curious about economics.
When bombarded with the inevitable "Can we watch a movie?" question from students I would always tell them that we would watch one, and only one, "movie" in class once all of the EOCT testing hoopla was finished. My selection was always "Tucker: The Man and His Dream." Good flick, relevant to econ and a PG rating to boot!
If there is a cooler way to look at statistics and economic data out there I would like to see it because this site absolutely rules. I don't hand out the Econblog Seal of Awesomeness very often but I am going to do it right now. Show this website to your students and I guarantee they will be blown away.
North Dakota has many things to brag about. It is home to the world's largest walleye, the world's largest catfish, and the world's largest holstein cow. North Dakota has given us legendary musician Lawrence Welk, baseball great Roger Maris, Police Woman Angie Dickinson, and GCEE Executive Director David Martin.
If we are going to give $3,500-$4,500 for vehicle purchases why don't we try this: trade in your gas guzzler and the government gives you $$$ (wouldn't even have to be $3,500-$4,500) toward the purchase of a brand new bicycle. Think of all the "problems" this would solve.
There are about 50 or 60 zillion online "calculators" floating around out there on the "Internets" so how do you pick just a few that are useful for your students? After all, we have calculators that will tell you that eating seven Baconators is a bad idea. Calculators that can tell you how many days until the yearly Little 5 Points Halloween parade. Heck, there is even this.
Welcome back to school everyone. After today you only have 179 more days until summer vacation. It will be here before you know it.
Welcome back to school everyone! What a great time to be an economics teacher. Say what you will about the current miserable state of the economy, or the increased levels of government intervention in the economy, but I think we can all agree that studying economics is about as popular as it has ever been in this country. So much doom and gloom to share with the kids, so little time before the EOCT! Where do you even start? 
I wonder if the Somali pirates are Keynesians or supply-siders? Money quote of the story..." it's less dangerous than living in war-torn Mogadishu." Touche.
