The word “economics” has its origin in the Greek “oikonomikós” (relating to household management), from “oikos” (house). From
Gene Hayward's Blog
When you teach, do you go a mile deep and an inch wide? Or a mile wide and an inch deep?
Using my plans is like drilling a mile deep an inch wide. My plans are rigorous in the sense that a student has to reinterpret data to discover the secrets hidden in macroeconomic data. I am reminded of my fourth grade teacher telling us that the more she watched a movie, the more she gained from each viewing. Reviewing that data from the FED often leads to new insights for me. Like a runner who must build up an aerobic “base”, students will return to the same data base then build new intuitions on the base.
Malcolm Gladwell writes in “Outliers” that American students are given problems that are unrelated whereas Asian students are given homogeneous problems. The latter approach is like going a mile deep and an inch wide. Mr. Gladwell means, I think, is that American students become a Jack-of-all trades but a master of none. In my opinion, American students do not discover the meaning of the concepts they are taught because they are not given the tools for rigorous examination. This plan provides the in-depth rigor and repetition needed to discover the deep understanding of economic concepts.
Robert H. Frank writes in the preface to Microeconomics, “The problem in our view, is these [introductory economics courses] almost always try to teach students too much….Our textbook grew out of our conviction that students will learn far more if we attempt to cover much less.” This statement captures the idea that true understanding of economic concepts means digging a mile deep and an inch wide.
It is my opinion that much of economics is taught in a dogmatic fashion without proof or argument. Students often get apocryphal content from the media, parents, and teachers. Some teachers believe that economics is a family budget, balancing a checkbook, and playing the stock market. Parents believe that economics is calculating the miles per gallon a car can travel on a gallon of gasoline. Economics is loosely construed to be anything that has to do with money, finance, or family and consumer sciences. With such a broad definition of economics, it is no wonder that most teachers choose to go a mile wide and an inch deep. Only sedulous study and rigorous examination of the data can students dig deeper into data and move beyond the anecdotal intuition of economics. Only diligent digging leads to learning that can be reliably recalled and applied to real world problems.
Knowledge should be tested for validity. If an archeologist wants to prove that the cradle of mankind is in the Olduvai Gorge, he must move beyond the theory and dig. The plans I have written here, students can dig into data and debase untenable concepts and divine a working definition of economics.
Working with data presented me with many challenges. When I thought the data would provide a clear explanation, I concluded that working with data poses complex cause and effect processes. There are also many exogenous variables outside of the economic models we use in AP Economics to explain output, prices, and employment. Instead of data presenting a definite solution, I was often left with more questions. At the end of this project, I felt humbled. My lack of the math skills necessary to bring this project to fruition was a constant source of my need to make learning a life-long activity.
I hope you will use my work as a springboard to enhance your classroom. I know that end-user innovation is where true social change occurs and innovation is born.
