Homeschooling Entrepreneurs

The title of this post can be read in two ways, both of which are true for my family. One, we are entrepreneurs who are homeschooling. Two, we are homeschooling our children to be entrepreneurs.

I tried writing a post about this but it got overly long, so I’m going to turn it into a series. With eight more posting days this month, I can use the content.

I think this topic is of general interest because we are all entrepreneurs. All of our children will be entrepreneurs — because work life is changing. It’s already changed. Young people today change jobs seven times on average before the age of 30. No matter who signs your paycheck, you are the one in charge of running the business of you. You are the one who cares most about your work experience and your work/life balance. Employers are now more like clients, and statistically, your kids are going to have a lot of them.

So, before we get started...

Who here is running a business — or wants to?

What do you think your child’s work life might look like in 2032? Would you like to make entrepreneurial skills a part of his or her education?

the crush toward the middle

Kids, when we grow up, have dreams, and we have passions, and we have visions, and somehow we get those things crushed. We get told that we need to study harder or be more focused or get a tutor. My parents got me a tutor in French, and I still suck in French. Two years ago, I was the highest-rated lecturer at MIT’s entrepreneurial master’s program. And it was a speaking event in front of groups of entrepreneurs from around the world. When I was in grade two, I won a city-wide speaking competition, but nobody had ever said, “Hey, this kid’s a good speaker. He can’t focus, but he loves walking around and getting people energized.” No one said, “Get him a coach in speaking.” They said, get me a tutor in what I suck at. — Cameron Herold

How much of your child’s education is focused on his perceived deficits, and how much is focused on his individual talents?

academics vs. real-world results

If start-up activity is the true engine of job creation in America, one thing is clear: our current educational system is acting as the brakes. Simply put, from kindergarten through undergraduate and grad school, you learn very few skills or attitudes that would ever help you start a business. Skills like sales, networking, creativity and comfort with failure.

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Moreover, very few start-ups get off the ground without a wide, vibrant network of advisers and mentors, potential customers and clients, quality vendors and valuable talent to employ. You don’t learn how to network crouched over a desk studying for multiple-choice exams. You learn it outside the classroom, talking to fellow human beings face-to-face.

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After all, there is not one job market in America, but two. The formal market we always hear about — jobs that get filled through cold résumé submissions in reply to posted ads — accounts for only about 20 percent of jobs.

The other 80 percent get filled in the informal job market. Any employer knows how the informal job market works: you need a position filled, so you ask your friends, colleagues and current employees if they know anyone who would do a good job.

In this informal job market, the academic requirements listed in job ads tend to be highly negotiable, and far less important than real-world results and the enthusiasm of the personal referral.

Classroom skills may put you at an advantage in the formal market, but in the informal market, street-smart skills and real-world networking are infinitely more important.

Yet our children grow up amid an echo chamber of voices telling them to get good grades, do well on their SATs, and spend an average of $45,000 on tuition — after accounting for scholarships — while taking on $23,000 in debt to get a private four-year college education.

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Parents could turn the system on its head if they weren’t so caught up in outmoded mentalities about education forged in the stable economy of the 1950s (but profoundly misguided in today’s chaotic, entrepreneurial economy).

— Will Dropouts Save America?, New York Times

What say you? Is your child’s future work life a focus of how you are schooling or homeschooling today? How much does this guide your choices?

happy haul-idays from chronicle books

Chronicle Books has an annual Happy Haul-idays contest where a blogger can choose $500 worth of books and if he or she wins, they also get to give the same prize to one lucky commenter (so do comment!) AND to a charity of their choice.

This is just too good to pass up. I love Chronicle and I always tweet their sales — that’s when I stock up for birthdays, holidays, and everydays (moleskines, you know). So here’s my list — and please comment so if I am the lucky winner, you might be a lucky winner, too!

Here’s my list, and it took longer to make it than to write a real post:

Over and Under the Snow, His Shoes Were Far Too Tight, A Long Piece of String, Creature ABC, Jacob Lawrence in the City, Counting with Wayne Thiebaud, Vunce Upon a Time, Little Hoot, The Orphan of Awkward Falls, Wideness and Wonder, Paper Dolls Parade Notebook Set, Pirate’s Log, Shakespeare’s Love Sonnets, I Was Here, Paper + Craft, The Exquisite Book, One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book, The Art and Making of Star Wars, Comic-Con, Little Book of Letterpress, Art of McSweeney’s, Graphic Design for Nondesigners, The Little Book of Screenprinting, and Bicycle Travel Journal

Whew. I hope Santa thinks I’ve been really good this year.

Good luck!

new site is imminent

The new site should be launched within the next week or two — with a workable forum and e-mail subscriptions!

(And the book will quickly follow. Finally. More about that very soon.)

open thread

[V]isions, no matter how grand, need to be acted upon to become real. Ideas, clearly, are important. Without them change has no rudder. But change also needs wind and a sail to catch it. Without them there is no movement. — Elliot Eisner