We are excited to partner with Kennesaw State University Shore Entrepreneurship Center next year to offer a first-of-its-kind, social entrepreneurship capstone experience for our very first group of eighth-grade students at The Children’s School! KSU has designed an experience for our future eighth graders that allows them to discover the mindset, culture, and best practices to transform them into entrepreneurs.
TCS eighth graders will have the unique opportunity to be immersed in a college-level capstone experience with access to college professors, staff, and students.
We recently sat down with Founder and Executive Director Chris Hanks and Assistant Director Regan Durkin of the Kennesaw State University Shore Entrepreneurship Center to discuss how the capstone will work and what students can expect to learn.
When did the partnership start?
RD: Every summer, we host something called the International Entrepreneurship Institute where 50 of the best educators around the world gather to become entrepreneurial educators and then to also learn how to infuse entrepreneurial mindset in their classroom. One of our board members connected us with Christy Robinson (Director of Extended Day & Summer Learning at TCS), so she came to our Institute and just ate it up. So that’s how it was born.
What has been done and what needs to get done?
RD: First, we spent a whole day with the eighth-grade team unpacking what their thoughts are on social entrepreneurship and really defining what the brand of social entrepreneurship is going to be for The Children’s School. We’ve defined it, we’ve developed culture, and are working on how to infuse it and establish a game plan moving forward to develop a capstone experience for the eighth graders that really will transform them into social entrepreneurs.
What will the curriculum look like when it’s done?
CH: The curriculum that we’re using is the same curriculum that we use all throughout undergrad, grad, etc. It’s the process of getting from where you are to where you want to be. These are the same tools that we lead some of the best entrepreneurs in the southeast in, that they’re going to be empowered with at eighth grade. The way we talk about it is going to be different but the curriculum is going to be the same process and a journey we take college students through.
Who is working on it? Are professors helping?
RD: The team at TCS, Chris and I (Chris is a professor at KSU in entrepreneurship), and a group of our board members. Some of the best CEOs in Atlanta are committed to helping with this because they are social entrepreneurs themselves.
Why do you want to work with TCS? What makes our middle schoolers or our school different than other people you’ve worked with?
RD: Without having met them, we were told a story about some of the conversations that they had around really difficult issues as far as immigration, race, inequity, and things like that. The conversations that these eighth graders are having, to me, already expresses so much potential in their learning ability. TCS does an amazing job of teaching kids that they have a voice and how to express that. What’s exciting for us to then partner with TCS is that now we’re putting hands to the voice with entrepreneurship.
CH: I was impressed before but even in this visit, how this school reflects the entrepreneurial mindset is impressive to me. There’s just such an entrepreneurial spirit and mindset here already. I don’t know if they would ever use that term but it’s so apparent that this place is a hotbed of entrepreneurship. It’s awesome, you know?
RD: It’s like going to the Willy Wonka factory. So many possibilities!
CH: It’s really, really cool to have a partnership where we are leading the cause of the entrepreneurial mindset and using our influence in the university and the reputation of our Entrepreneurship Center to do that. To partner with a school like this is just such a vivid example of the entrepreneurial mindset. It just makes sense.
Have you worked with other middle schoolers?
RD: Usually we don’t work with the students directly, but we’ve trained a lot of middle school teachers and it all manifests itself in different ways in which they take from this whole idea of the entrepreneurial mindset. It’s been really beautiful working with middle school kids because they’re just in this place of exploration. To see their spirits come alive is really beautiful!
What can our middle grades families expect?
RD: So many things! Engagement is supercritical and as an eighth grader, your student will walk away feeling a little bit of the weight and the burden and the responsibility to actually be empowered to do something about it. I think there are schools out there that do a great job with exposure to social issues and all the problems in our world. It’s fairly easy to have an opinion about it but to really walk away and be an eighth grader who feels like they can ask the right questions, have a conversation with a CEO, identify problems and propose solutions… that’s unheard of, generally, in a middle school. So, your kids are going to be way ahead of their generation as far as being the leaders in solving social issues.
CH: Being empowered with this entrepreneurial mindset is such a source of advantage for people–the idea that you learn how to create opportunities and not just wait for permission or wait to be given an opportunity. These kids will see more rate of change than my generation, your generation, and so on. Being empowered with a mindset to see opportunities in the chaos in change as opposed to being threatened by it; I think that exposure is lifelong. Not only that but learning how to solve problems, learning how to be empowered to create solutions is such an empowering thing for students. It’s not just about learning a curriculum in entrepreneurship. Thinking and acting like an entrepreneur changes people’s lives.
RD: This entrepreneurship mindset creates a need-to-know and allows students to find relevance and meaning in their education journey wherever they go after The Children’s School. I think that is a really powerful, lifelong mindset shift for a student; to always find relevance and meaning in their education.
Come see immersive project-based learning in action during a See Us In Action visit day on Jan. 17th! Register here.
