Amanda Brock is mentoring gifted and talented fourth grade students at two San Marcos, TX elementary schools through an innovative program called Free Enterprise Education Development (FEED).
A 2008 Marcus High School graduate and member of the Texas State Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team, Brock, along with a team of three other SIFE members, teach the students how to act as employees in their own school store and how to achieve financial responsibility by imparting basic business principles to encourage business leadership, including concepts such as investing.
The children are encouraged to invest and retain ownership in their school store through stock certificates. At the end of the semester they will receive double the money they invested in a hypothetical stock dividend.
Every Monday during the semester, Brock and her team have been going to the elementary schools and teaching the students basic business terms. On Fridays, SIFE and the fourth graders operate a school store.
The fourth grade students working with the SIFE team are involved in every aspect of the store, from the products they want to sell to the setting of prices. This helps the students get in the habit of using critical thinking to make wise business choices and helps them understand the value of a dollar.
SIFE is a global, non-profit organization consisting of student teams on more than 1600 university campuses in 40 countries. SIFE offers students the opportunity to develop leadership, teamwork, and communication skills through learning, practicing and teaching the principles of free enterprise, thereby improving the standard of living for millions in the process.
Texas State’s SIFE program is the leading collegiate teams in the United States. To learn more about SIFE, visit their website at www.business.txstate.edu/sife/.
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