The Politics of Children

It started a few months ago. My first-grade daughter was talking a lot about a club her classmates had started. Each member got a special title upon joining, and I could tell she was anxious to be asked to join. The day she finally got the invitation, she enthusiastically told me that she had been granted the Princess Anything title by King Anything (a 7-year-old named Bennett). The hierarchy established by their King/Queen/Prince/Princess titles was obvious, but “Anything” created another alliance of some sort that I was not privileged to know or understand.

We’ve all made or joined a club or two growing up. I had the “Waterbomb Club” for the neighborhood girls to gain entry into my backyard swimming pool. Then there was the “Pink Ladies are Cool” club that I started with my best friend after watching Grease for the eleventh time. I never really thought of the clubs as anything more than innocent fun. Or are they?

King Anything.

King Anything made me wonder about the politics of children. How did King Anything gain this influence over the other kids? How did he behave to achieve this alpha male status? What was his motive? Was it just for fun? Did he get a hint of satisfaction, a spike in serotonin, in ruling over and controlling the other kids? When do children go from power plays to playing for power?

What evolutionary significance lies at the heart of alliances and hierarchy in child’s play?

About the same time my kid was ascending to Princess status, I came across three really great movies touching on the politics of children. Each gives a perceptive glimpse into the origins of our social makeup, asking and answering questions like:

• What tactics do kids use to get what they want? How much of of those tactics are learned from adults (vs. being innate)?
• What sense of justice and fairness is natural?
• What degree of freedom is instinctual?
• What are we willing to give up in order to fit into the “in” crowd?

The Movies (I highly recommend all of these):

World Peace Game

Movie: Blame it on Fidel!

Documentary: Please Vote for Me

1. World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements (documentary): Social studies teacher John Hunter created the “World Peace Game” to introduce his fourth-grade students to global issues and improve their diplomacy and critical thinking skills. The children are divided into teams representing fictional countries, each with limited natural resources, economic dilemmas and enemies. There are arms traders and even a schemer planted among the students who is instructed to lie and throw everyone off their game. This movie follows one class through the 8-week game as they work hard to gather allies and protect their resources. We see them get angry when they lose control of their country’s power, and that’s when things get ugly. The only way to win the game is for each country to obtain a minimum limit of GDP so that “World Peace” can be declared. An absolutely fascinating look into the nature of politics!
2. Blame it on Fidel! (narrative): A brilliant film about a young French girl whose parents become radical Communists and turn her world upside-down. In her confusion and anger, she asks the adults around her some of the most rational, insightful questions, but no one is really able to answer them correctly or thoroughly for her.
3. Please Vote for Me (documentary): Chinese kids participate in their own, unprecedented, democratic election of their class monitor. One kid is eager to control his classmates and uses charisma to charm them into voting for him. Another kid says he doesn’t want to control people, yet already has a history of beating his classmates into submission. He learns to use a field trip as an incentive to buy votes. They try persuasion, deliberation and even intimidation to gain votes. The only thing they don’t try is an SNL skit to make the others look like idiots.

The politics of children is not unlike our own adult politics. There are hints of war in every playground squabble fought and diplomacy in every club alliance formed. Understanding how to maneuver through society resourcefully, peacefully, and ethically is critical to a child’s education, especially the entrepreneur’s.

A few days ago, my daughter told me she quit the club. Why? I asked, knowing how much it once meant to her. She quit because her friend Marcy quit, and Marcy told her to. Since my daughter is normally a very independent child, I found her blind obedience (or was it loyalty?) odd. I asked her why she quit just because her friend told her to. (I resisted from asking her if Marcy jumped off the Empire State Building, would she. I’m sure I’ll have another chance to use that one). She answered me, “I don’t know. I guess I was getting bored with it.” Oh, okay. That was a better reason. Then she said the next day they both joined the club again! Ha! So fickle!

I can only imagine what alpha male King Anything did to convince these two strong-willed little girls to rejoin his “boring” club, but I guess it was pretty persuasive. He’ll be one to watch!

——————————————————————————————–

NOTE: The 3rd book of the FBLS, Wyatt’s Laughing Lark (and the Search for the Secret Map), introduces politics to the entrepreneur kids of Nessibus through a mayoral race between two politicians: Flash the Fly and Barnacle Blah Barnes. From a political and personal perspective, they are complete opposites of each other, yet they share one thing in common: they both want to pass laws that will threaten the entrepreneur kids’ businesses, leaving readers to wonder which politician will they align to and how they will save their businesses?

Entrepreneur Extends Property Rights to the Extreme Poor

UPDATE: I have new information that addresses the question I had below.

Entrepreneurship starts with property rights and I recently discovered this entrepreneur, Roy Prosterman, who started the world’s first non-governmental organization (31 years ago) designed to partner with governments to extend land rights to the extreme poor. His organization is now called Landesa.

See how Landesa is thriving now >>

Landesa Success Stories >> (some go on to open their own small businesses!)

I do wonder if they (or a partner) teach the new property owners how to manage their land and other resources so that they can prosper.  A few late payments to the bank financing the land and the dream would be gone.

UPDATE: I have new information that addresses the question I had above. According to Matt Lambert of Landesa, no loans are involved in their work. They work “with local governments who give land to small holder farmers so they have a stable economic asset to create a home, subsist on homegrown food, sell surplus crops to generate income, and use as they know best.“  Thank you, Matt, for clarifying that point.

“The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation.” –Ayn Rand

Podcast: Raising a Capitalist (radio interview Fishman and Bouani)

Here’s a quick podcast where Jay Fishman (570 WSYR, Syracuse NY) and I talk about raising a capitalist. It was 6:20 am in the morning and why I sound so groggy! Check it out:

>> PODCAST: Listen to “Raising a Capitalist” (Fishman & Bouani) Now <<

President of India seeks ways to make Indian kids entrepreneurs

According to Charu of Delhi, India: 

The President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, is on a mission to change the mentality and aspiriations of Indian kids from becoming employees to becoming entrepreneurs.  Kalam recognizes this initiative will help secure the financial stability of his country.

• Charu’s blog 

Connecting the Dots: Kids to Business

I’m all for schools and businesses working together to connect the dots for students to know how to compete in a global workforce. We do need to work to better meld the two entities.  In the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Tim Hough writes about an initiative going on between Atlanta Public Schools and Atlanta businesses (Atlanta Business Chronicle, Jun 1-7) to do just such a thing.  Beverly Hall, the superintendent, is working to fully reform the public school system to connect the dots in the disciplines of engineering, health sciences and research.  But I think the focus may be misguided. 

China and India are generating baskets-full of engineers and researchers.  On sheer numbers, America cannot compete.   But what has America always been good at (besides war)?  Creating businesses!–tapping into our entrepreneurial spirit and paving new roads, new industries and new technologies.  Who would have imagined Google or Amazon 15 years ago? 
 
But are we forgetting where we came from?  The Kauffman Foundation just reported that immigrant entrepreneurial activities are outpacing those of native-born Americans.  While it increased for Asians and Latinos, it stayed steady for non-Latino whites and even fell for blacks.  Where are our entrepreneurs?  Who will create the next Microsoft?

Although I admire Hall for her courage to tread new ground, I wish school systems would focus their attention on teaching kids how to RUN businesses, not be employed by them.

• Kauffman Foundation Study

Calling American Parents: Rise Up & Meet the Challenge of Rising China

Everywhere we turn, we hear about the rise of China and the likely prediction that its shadow will soon eclipse the American Dream.  I don’t know about you in regards to your kids, but I’m VERY concerned about my daughter’s future.  It’s that deep concern that drove me to write a children’s book to encourage kids to think like entrepreneurs.   

I just recently read Reed Hundt’s In China’s Shadow:  The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship where he warns Americans that creating a culture of entrepreneurship is the only hope for America’s economy.   He says: 

The only adequate response to rising Asia lies in the cultural reform that will vastly increase entrepreneurship. Leaders need to encourage broader (more markets) and deeper (more entrepreneurs) new initiatives without knowing what specific results will follow.  They need to focus on architectural changes that support the culture of entrepreneurship.  Then American society will see the creation of start-up technological companies in more numbers and in more markets—because increases in scale (bigger efforts) and scope ( more fields of endeavor) of entrepreneurship are required to meet the challenge of rising China.  Entrepreneurial firms will stimulate, aggregate, and replicate the unpredictable creativity that lies in everyone.  Acting formally or informally together, individuals will make new goods, services, markets, and jobs that are no more imaginable today than eBay or Amazon was before it started.  While the Chinese ruling elite try to copy the American economy of the past, American citizens should change their economy, and export their “new new things” to China.    –p. 58

He goes on to say,  

[Entrepreneurship, American Style] is also the only viable choice for the American economy, because it already comprises too many markets, and each has too much complexity, for a top-down, centralized authority to implement a detailed plan for job creation.  –p.58-59

His call to action:

American policy should be to intensify and amplify a culture of entrepreneurship to create and capture value in the future in ways scarcely imaginable in the present.   

The government cannot order people to start new firms.  No technology can send them through a production line.  No leader can describe the thousands of new firms needed by Americans.  The culture, however, can produce a great upsurge of entrepreneurship, as occurred in the 1990s.

It is not enough for just our business & political leaders to figure out ways to create a culture of entrepreneurship to face rising China.  We need to also look to the parents & teachers raising and educating the next generation of American leaders if we are truly to succeed at creating a culture of entrepreneurship and surpassing our Asian competition.   The children are our future.  It is our only hope. 

References:

• Bio of Reed Hundt

• Hundt’s Book: In China’s Shadow

• Hundt’s Website:  http://www.reedhundt.com/