4th graders who have a ton of guts.

Today I was invited to talk to my daughter’s 4th grade class about being in business. They are doing a market day project where the students come up with a product or service. They design and create a booth to sell them in as well. As a father and teacher, I love this project. I wish I had a project like this when I was in 4th grade. As I began speaking about what I do in education , I felt the need to ask them what their ideas were for their products or services. The class consisted of 2 4th grade classes and there were about 45 kids in the room. Every last one of them was eager to share their product or service. They didn’t care how silly, goofy, funny, great or bad it was. They shared like they were going to succeed. They were confident.​

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This was amazing to me because I teach high school and a lot of kids become embarrassed or quiet by that age because they’ve been silenced by the critics. As I listened to the ideas of each student I realized they had guts. The kids didn’t care about what people thought of their idea. They didn’t think that it was going to fail. The 4th graders were full of optimism and looked for opportunity.. I try to teach my students this everyday at the highschool level. Too often we let others push our ideas and dreams down until we don’t even believe in them ourselves. We become scared because of what other people think. Sometime between 4th grade and High School all this occurs. As I continue to seek out my dreams and passions about changing education, today was a reminder to me to be like a fourth grader in my pursuits. The passion these kids had learning some business education without any fear was moving. This day will stay with me as I continue my journey disrupting education. The bottom line is these 4th graders had a ton of guts.