Success. This is a word that hits home to many people. Who wouldn’t want success for their kids and students? We all do. But the reality is, life is about failure and learning to pick yourself up when you are down. Having an incubator course incorporated into a high school curriculum lets students learn that and so much more.
I sat in the panel “Entrepreneurship: The empowering nature of failure” featuring Margarita Geleske, Michael Miles, Scott Arnett and Thomas Leonard at SXSW Edu. They discussed a rigorous and authentic program at Barrington High School which allowed an incubator class to be part of the curriculum.
“This program will teach students to go after what they like not what one tells them to do,” Thomas Leonard said.
This course allows students to learn about startup business and entrepreneurship by actually doing. Learning by doing leads students to have excellent team work and valuable relationships with mentors and teachers that are experts in the business field. For students it all starts with a spark for a creative idea they are passionate about.
“Students work harder and are more invested in their idea when they can monetize a solution from a simple problem they became passionate about,” Michael Miles said.
Having a one year credit incubator course in high schools will get students away from the routine of school and engage them in learning about real life skills and experiences. As a student in an incubator course you:
- Find a simple problem out there
- Pitch idea to others
- Establish a business model canvas
- Find a solution
- Test the solution through Minimum Viable Product
This process of testing out the product or service in the market brings many failures. Things that should be changed and examined further that were not previously thought of start to arise. With the assistance of mentors the students learn that success is not achievable at the first try. However, if they keep trying their creativity will bring in new options and considerations for the business they had not previously thought of and could end up with success.
“Having an incubator course in high school is great for the C students that struggle with memorization but are able to apply concepts to the business world, ” Michael Miles said.
FuntasTech is just one example of an incubator course startup that was launched several years ago by a high school student, Scott Arnett, and has continued to grow since.
A plethora amount of real life skills are learned from launching your own business as a teenager. Learning to fail and pick yourself up and continuing strong is one aspect and lesson many students should know and value. This incubator showed to be extremely effective for the students at Barrington High School and can be for many others around the nation.
FAILURE leads to LEARNING