10/30/2007 1:35:00 PM Teaching the economics of minimum wage
Emily Rosengren, who was recognized for an economics unit she teaches, in her Minnetonka High School classroom.
PHOTO: Mark Trockman
By Kelly Westhoff
Is it possible to survive on a minimum-wage job? That's a question Emily Rosengren asks her students.
Rosengren teaches social studies at Minnetonka High School. She recently won top prize for a unit focusing on that question, which she designed and implemented in her 10th grade classroom.
The prize was granted by 3M and the Minnesota Council on Economic Education, a nonprofit organization that strives to prepare all Minnesotans to live fiscally sound lives.
Each year, the council, in conjunction with 3M, invites elementary and secondary teachers across the state to submit original units that teach economic principals.
Two summers ago, Rosengren took a class offered by the council, which regularly offers programming for teachers. The courses encourage educators to include economic studies in their classrooms.
According to Rosengren, the classes are free and by completing a homework assignment, participants can earn graduate credits, a sought-after commodity as public school teachers must constantly acquire credits in order to renew their teaching licenses.
"The council is this great secret in our department" Rosengren said. "It's always mailing out flyers and we teachers are always highlighting classes and sliding them across the lunch table to each other. The classes are free, and you get credit. It's the sweetest deal possible."
The course Rosengren attended was especially for social studies teachers. After reviewing basic economic principals, the teachers were asked to take a current unit of study from their classrooms and find ways to insert economic concepts. As an alternative, the teachers could also write a new unit involving economics. Rosengren did the later.
Rosengren signed up for the class because her own teaching responsibilities had shifted. Two years ago, the high school's social studies curriculum was reconfigured. Economics, which had previously been taught in other years, was moved to 9th grade, the grade level Rosengren worked with the most. She felt unprepared to take on the new subject.
"I hadn't taken an economics class since college. It was my least favorite of all the social sciences," she said. "It just was not a language I was fluent in and I was really intimidated by it."
Considering the recognition she just earned, Rosengren is embarrassed to recall her initial attitude on the course.
"I remember the first day of that class," she said. "All the other teachers in the room seemed to know what they were doing. These econ words were rolling off their tongues and I didn't even remember what the vocabulary meant. It was obvious I was the least equipped person in the class. I went home that day convinced it would be the worst week ever."
Yet she stuck it out and turned in a stellar performance. Even though she registered for the class because of the 9th grade curriculum changes, the winning unit she turned in was written with her 10th graders in mind.
Rosengren teaches 10th graders in the alternative learning program (ALP). Students in these classes have been identified as academically at risk. The unit, she said, really helped these students engage in the learning process and connect the past to the present.
After learning about the Great Depression, Rosengren explained, her ALP students were always fascinated with the different ways that people got by without taking government assistance.
"The kids are always impressed," she said, "with the general strength and willpower of the people to resist relief when they so clearly needed help. They are amazed how many people were too proud to accept welfare. They always say that people today wouldn't do that. People today would take the money."
Rosengren's idea for the winning unit was inspired by her students' fascination with the evident pride of those who survived the Great Depression.
She fast-forwarded the idea into the present tense by designing a week-long course of study in which the students would pretend they were trying to "get by" without taking welfare.
Rosengren cuts want-ads from the Sunday paper and has students draw a job from a hat.
She searches for the lowest-paying jobs she can. Last year, she said, she actually couldn't find a job that paid minimum wage. The lowest pay she found was $8 an hour.
Once students have a job, they must create a budget. They search apartment listings and find a home they can afford. They figure out transportation, whether that means buying a car (which means they must search car ads, calculate the cost of gas and price out insurance) or taking the bus (which means identifying time tables, fares and routes.)
Last year, Rosengren's first year teaching the unit, she was surprised to learn that her students didn't know what utilities were.
"They said, 'You have to pay for water?' They didn't know you had to pay for electricity. I said, 'Yeah, that's why your parents are always walking around behind you and turning off the lights.'"
"I was really surprised at how this unit just unfolded without a lot of prodding on my part," Rosengren said. "I did some group lecture at the beginning to get it started, but the kids really made the connections on their own. I really wanted them to come out of this at the end understanding the benefit of staying in school, and they got it."
"The kids really started to understand that the things they wanted to spend their money on they just couldn't afford. They were frustrated, irritated, cranky. There was lots of whining. They started to see that if you are poor, life just becomes one big hassle," she said.
"And they had it easy," Rosengren said. "None of them had kids. I didn't even bring up health insurance."
For a woman who entered the realm of economics education filled with uncertainty and skepticism, Rosengren came out the other end confident and eager.
"This whole process has been a real gift," she said.
High schoolers, she said, are ideal students of economics.
"They're little entrepreneurs. They're always looking for a way to make a buck and they understand incentives. What they don't understand is price. Why are some things more expensive than others?"
"I would never say I'm an expert in economics," she said. "It's still not something I'm totally comfortable with, but I'm not intimidated by it anymore," she said.
Rosengren plans to continue teaching economics because she believes her students need it. Plus, she said, "... they identify with it."
