"“In my book, there’s no reason why children in elementary schools can’t be launching their own businesses,” Rebekah Neumann said in an interview. She thinks kids should develop their passions and act on them early, instead of waiting to grow up to be “disruptive,” as the entrepreneurial set puts it."
Gotta indoctrinate them early to the capitalist way.
And the justification is such a load of crap: kids, and adults for that matter, are perfectly capable of "developing their passions" without wrapping it in the cloak of _business_.
The idolization of business culture has gotten completely out of hand.
> The idolization of business culture has gotten completely out of hand.
I'm concerned that when these children grow up they won't have the coping mechanisms to deal with the fact that very few of them will get to be the CEO.
That and the general cultural impact of bolstering STEM careers at the expense of skilled, manual labor careers, which can pay the same or more - especially when partnered with a strong entrepreneurial mindset.
This stuff feels like a new outlet for overbearing stage/sport parenting types.
"In my book, there's no reasons why we can't take money from the parents of children in elementary school."
This has nothing to do with enabling entrepreneurial youth. The vast majority of cases will involve students whose parents bankroll, manage, or outright run, the business.
"Cute kid invents innovative new 3d printing process, with only minor help from dad (Masters mechanical engineering), and mom (MBA Stanford, Google Project manager)."
My brother decided on his own he was going to be a paper boy at the age of 8. He wanted to save up money to buy a car. Announced this to my dad, who decided to roll with it. (My dad had picked fruit from orchards as a kid for similar reasons -- other kids did it because their families needed the money.) Later he set up a business doing yard work with a friend, put up flyers and everything.
Me? I sold origami in elementary school and tried to become a loan shark in middle school, until some wuss took up a dispute with a teacher.
Why is playing video games and roaming the neighborhood on bikes a more appropriate behavior for kids than doing work and getting money? It beats violin lessons.
It's a pretty tone-deaf thing to say -- sounds like someone that hasn't yet realized that people have mixed feelings about tech/disruption/etc.
I do think we can and should be challenging middle/HS kids to engage with the real world more than we currently do. "Start a business" might make sense, alongside (eg) "get an op-ed published", "create/market/manage a park cleanup event", etc.
Elementary is maybe too early for all that. It's certainly a dumb place to start the conversation in this zeitgeist.
This seems to relate directly to what Malcom Harris discusses in his new book [1]. I just happened to read these back to back and I couldn't believe it.
Jesus dude, let kids be kids for a bit.