Small Town Hall | Marketplace From American Public Media.

I love this! Marketplace Public Radio convened a “Small Townhall” with eight middle school aged kids to ask them questions about the economy. The idea is that the economic decisions made by today’s business leaders, policymakers, academics and grown-ups in general will have huge effects on today’s youth when they grow up, so why not ask them what they think of the big economic issues today? In my own classes, I often refer to the US national debt as a “teenager tax” since it will ultimately be paid back through higher taxes by income earners in the future. Well, these kids are those future income earners.

The questions the kids are asked:

1. Should kids be allowed to have credit cards?
2. Do you know what the recession is?
3. What is the deficit?
4. Has the recession changed your dreams?
5. What do you think about debt?
6. Do you have any investment advice?
7. What do you think about saving money?

My favorite is the kid’s explanation of the current recession. If one of my 18 year old year two IB Economics students could explain the recession as well as this 12 year old, I’d be one proud teacher!

About the author:  Jason Welker is a teacher at Zurich International School in Switzerland, where he teaches Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Economics. In addition to maintaining numerous online resources for economics student and educators, Jason developed the online version of the IB Economics course for Virtual High School and is currently authoring a textbook for IB Economics students for Pearson Baccalaureate which will be available in Spring of 2011. His economics student wiki won the 2007 "Best Educational Wiki" award from the "EduBlog Awards".

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