It became apparent to me that many of these young people had a natural aptitude for entrepreneurship. Their challenging lives encouraged independence of spirit, toughness, unself-consciousness, and a natural ability in salesmanship. They were comfortable with risk and ambiguity. Those same qualities -- along with difficulty in doing well in a traditional, structured environment -- characterized many great American entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford and Conrad Hilton. I found that the negative characteristics of my students, when channeled into entrepreneurial activities, became positive. The benefits they reaped went far beyond the areas of education and business and academic subjects. For Maurice, business skills had also, imperceptibly, become social skills.
Other social behavior would change, too. I eventually observed that of the girls in my class who became interested in entrepreneurship, fewer became pregnant or got married or dropped out of school. When the female students became economically literate, they were not so quick to tie themselves down with children at an early age.
Running their own businesses helped my students make better decisions in their personal lives because it taught them about delayed gratification. The primary act of business -- buy low, sell high -- takes place over time, with money as a reward. As a result, people seem to make better decisions in general after starting a business. Many times I saw that the way a student looked at the future was expanding right before my eyes.
I was eager to test my entrepreneurial theories in a new environment, and at the end of the year, I put in for a transfer so I could teach at other schools in the system.
My last day at Boys & Girls High was more affecting than I would have thought possible just a short time before. One class gave me a card saying I was the best teacher they'd ever had. In my business-math class, the students applauded and made so much noise my supervisor came in, thinking there was a fight. I was particularly gratified when Braddock told me, "I've decided to start my own business."
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In the series of schools I was subsequently assigned to, spreading my "entrepreneurial message" began to require more and more subterfuge. It wasn't until I was assigned to Jane Addams Vocational High School, in the "Fort Apache" section of the South Bronx, that a principal, Pat Black, understood the potential value of what I was talking about. She gave me permission to teach a class in entrepreneurship. Instead of disguising entrepreneurial principles, I could now offer what I considered to be a crash course in capitalism and free enterprise to young people who didn't even know that the United States operated in a free-market system.
Such concepts aside, what my students could see clearly was that if they had their own businesses, the amount of money they could make would depend on their own hard work and how they conducted themselves. They realized that what they might have formerly considered irrelevant (reading and math), abstract (economics), and facile (advice on how to dress or behave) affected how one made one's livelihood. Entrepreneurship gave them a sense of importance and a seriousness of purpose -- after all, they were the presidents of their own companies, however modest.
Much of what they were learning they would have never encountered outside of M.B.A. courses, but there were virtually no business concepts that could not be made comprehensible to them. Even such "dry" business topics as the balance sheet provided unexpected bonuses. My students seemed to think that the local retailers, who were mostly Asian, made a profit of somewhere between 50¢ and 90¢ on every dollar. That notion contributed greatly to a resentment based on race. When they discovered that those retailers, who worked long hours, made closer to 4¢ or 5¢ per sale, my students looked at such businesses, and the people who ran them, very differently.
Eventually, my core curriculum came to include such subjects as supply and demand; entrepreneurship as the fulfillment of consumer needs; cost-benefit analysis; business ethics; record keeping; the present and future value of money; business communication, with an emphasis on concise memo writing and speaking on the phone; debt-versus-equity financing; the advantages and disadvantages of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and corporations; how to register one's business; time management and goal setting; quality, or the importance of pleasing the customer; negotiation strategies; advertising and marketing; and, of course, how to make a sales call.
Not all entrepreneurship students end up owning their own businesses, but one of my most significant findings over the years is that graduates of my programs do make better employees. They are better able to join the mainstream because they know how to be participants in our society instead of feeling they are merely some of its victims.
I am especially cheered by the success of some of my students from my first year of teaching. Mills and I actually stayed in contact for several years. He graduated from high school and credited that fact to his interest in entrepreneurship. After graduation, he got a job as an assistant manager of a flea market, got married, and was raising a family.
Around 1991 I ran into Therese, who, then 24, was vending on the street clothes that she had purchased wholesale. She had a city license. She said that when she had enough money she was going to rent a storefront and would eventually own several stores. She was attending Bronx Community College at night and had even gotten her mother interested in business. She'd kept the handouts I used to distribute in my classes and used them to help her run her business. "Thanks to you, Mr. Mariotti," she said, "I have always been able to take care of myself and make a living." I have never received a higher compliment.
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Adapted from The Young Entrepreneur's Guide to Starting and Running a Business, by Steve Mariotti and Tony Towle, copyright ©1996 by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Reprinted by permission of Times Books, a division of Random House Inc. NFTE, based in New York City, can be reached by phone at 212-232-3333.
