Entrepreneurial Mindset for Transformative Education with Stephen Carter

Ready to fully engage your students around transformative education? Weston Kurz, executive director of Dayspring Christian Academy, breaks down key leadership thoughts in a discussion around creating synergistic wins for students.

In a day and age where students have more choice in education, schools need to see students as customers, and when this happens, students will begin to flourish through a whole child outlook. 

Real engagement involves students (and teachers) stepping out of their comfort zones to grow in new and exciting ways--after all, healthy growth is contagious.

Dayspring Christian Academy worked with Seed Tree Group to launch an entrepreneurship program this year that results in a student-led pitch and the start of an official coffee shop on campus. And the program is just getting started.

To learn more, please visit:

www.dayspringeagles.org

www.seedtreegroup.com

Email Weston at [email protected]

Email Stephen at [email protected]

People who have developed an entrepreneurial mindset tend to have a few things in common including an insatiable sense of curiosity.

This sense of curiosity causes us to ask "Why?" with a true desire to understand, with a quest to get to the root cause. Part of this drive is due to entrepreneurs seeing problems as opportunities, so getting to the root of something is equated to opportunity seeking.

One of the best ways to practice this is through the "5 Why" technique where you ask the question why over and over to get to the root issue.

What happens when you take a group of students, many of whom struggle with a disability, and you put them in an Educational Service Center that is launching an entrepreneurial initiative?  In a word: engagement. 

Tom Isaacs, superintendent of the Warren County Educational Service Center, brings his over 40 years of experience in public education to this episode where he explores a range of themes related to reaching students with disabilities while supporting the staff who provide their care.

Tom explores the need for ongoing positive affirmation, the need to give students real-life experiences where they have ownership, the need for a career-ready education, and the need for schools to teach durable skills. 

The Warren County Educational Service Center is about to launch its third year of integrating entrepreneurial mindset education into its programs and the results have been incredible. 

Let's face it - of all the things we CAN teach our students, one of the most practical is how to manage their money.

Poor management of money is a clear formula for anxiety, stress, and broken relationships. A strong sense of how to properly manage money, however, creates pathways and opportunities for success.

When we teach financial literacy from the perspective of the entrepreneurial mindset, we give students a clear of understanding of not only how money works, but how it can work FOR them.

This involves four steps:

1) Create a revenue stream

2) Have a spending plan

3) Have a savings/investing plan

4) Apply Compound Interest

Ask students at First Baptist Academy in Houston, Texas what they are most excited about and chances are, their answers will be related to entrepreneurship. Two years ago, Teresa brought an entrepreneurship program to her campus and engaged her 8th grade students in launching a student-run venture at the school. Now they are developing a certificate track, certifying their teachers in the entrepreneurial mindset, and digging into deeper parent engagement.

Teresa's story is an inspiration to any head of school who is wondering how to start a meaningful entrepreneurship program--if you want to learn more about her school, visit their website at https://www.fbahouston.org/

For those wanting more information on what starting an entrepreneurship program at K-12 school looks like, reach out to Stephen Carter at [email protected] 

"Failure as fuel to future success" - Ryan Moore, Director of the Business Academy at North Cobb Christian School, outlines the key ways his entrepreneurship program has grown and is impacting students through the development of the entrepreneurial mindset. Overseeing multiple student-run ventures as part of the business academy at the school, Ryan (in addition to helping coach varsity baseball) helps students have "Ah ha" moments when it comes to building skill sets and increasing confidence, all through hands-on learning in entrepreneurship. 

Connect with him at [email protected]

North Cobb Christian School Website: https://www.ncchristian.org/academics/academies

Alumni mentioned in podcast to follow:

Finley Ross - NCCS Alumni at UGA - Finns Mobile Detailing - www.finnsautodetailingllc.com

Jaden King - NCCS Alumni - Superior Cans - Started his own commercial and residential trash can cleaning service. https://www.superiorcancleaning.com/

John Michael Meadows - NCCS Alumni - Started a Christian Clothing Brand - 2nd2him. Instagram handle is 2nd2him.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn - Ryan Moore M.S.

To learn more about starting an entrepreneurship program in your school, reach out to Stephen Carter at [email protected]

This episode of the Entrepreneurial Mindset for Transformative Education Podcast features a short clip from our entrepreneurship symposium event where we launched the premise that All of us are called to be entrepreneurial in how we think and act - how entrepreneurship is rooted in empathy and creativity, and how it is a calling to embrace.

When you bring a creative, artistic person and put them into a business setting, things don't always work out. But if that business setting is a space where the entrepreneurial mindset flourishes, good things are bound to happen: you will be forced out of your comfort zone, you'll be drawn into real-world problem solving, and you'll encounter ongoing critique and feedback on your way to develop empathy and a growth mindset.

Charleigh Wright, 2024 graduate from Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, exemplifies the entrepreneurial mindset in all that she does--she explains, in this podcast, how failure is a maze and how leadership, team building, and goal setting contributed to her overall success both in high school and now in college.

The word "entrepreneur" is not just hard to spell--it is loaded with meanings both literal and suggested, to the point that we need clarity around what the term actual means and represents.

In this episode, we explore Jordan Raynor's definition from his book, Called to Create, where he explains that an entrepreneur is "anyone who takes a risk to create something new for the good of others." In this sense, he has three primary components:

1) Takes a risk

2) Creates something new

3) Serves others

When we consider this three-fold definition, it becomes clear that we are all actually entrepreneurs in how we think about and interact with the world.

As part of the foundations of entrepreneurship program as we work to instill the entrepreneurial mindset in our students, we give them a project where they go out and sell something. And the real kicker is it has to be to someone they do not already know. 

This involves identifying a product or service and cutting to the heart of the TRUE value and creating a UVP or Unique Value Proposition. The true power comes as students identify the WHY behind what they are selling and it adds power to the entire experience. In the end, teaching the entrepreneurial mindset is about arming our students with real-world skills that will set them up for success in every area of life.