Noble Impact's Youth Entrepreneurship Taking eStem 'By Storm'
By Mark Carter
Mandy Ellis, a third grade teacher at Little Rock's eStem Public Charter Schools, believes the Noble Impact public service-flavored entrepreneurship program is taking her school by storm.
Noble Impact, introduced this past school year to the eStem High School cirriculum, last month extended its program to eStem third graders.
Noble co-founder (and INOV8 contributor) Chad Williamson believed the success he had experienced last summer at a pilot program for elementary students in Tampa could be translated to eStem third graders.
Seems he was right.
Here's a story today from Arkansas Business about Noble taking the program to the third graders.
Ellis told us the exposure to entrepreneurship provided by Noble has made better students of her kids.
"Noble Impact seems to be taking eStem by storm," she said. "Parents, teachers and students are curious about the concept and I am excited to see how we can expand it into more grade levels. I have seen many of my students who never would have stood in front of an audience take pride in their work and passionately defend why their issue needs to be resolved.
"As more and more eStem students are exposed to entrepreneurial skills at an early age, I foresee more productive classroom collaboration, with students driving the process and teachers being the support."
Here's a sample from the AB piece:
Noble introduces students to public service via entrepreneurship, and it uses the portable Lean Canvas startup model to do so. The "social good" aspect of launching a business that Noble stresses was not watered down for the third graders. Williamson said eStem’s third graders took to the concept without a hitch.
"All the 'companies' created by the third graders were socially driven," he said. "They addressed issues that were classroom issues, and even did customer validation working through the Lean Canvas approach."
The program was administered over two weeks in late May. Williamson sat in on classes while two of its third-grade teachers, Mandy Ellis and Faith White, ran the program. Meanwhile, Noble students from eStem High including Brazil crossed Third Street each morning of the program to serve as mentors.
"I loved watching the third graders work through the Lean Canvas," Brazil said. "They solve problems in the most creative ways. These third graders have shown me that the next stage of entrepreneurs are not only going to be high schoolers but also elementary students."
That's a point Williamson is happy to evangelize. He believes kids can accomplish much more than many adults are ready to concede. All they need is a nudge in the right direction. All 98 third graders at eStem were given that nudge through Noble, which received rave reviews from students and their parents.
And here's some director's cut material from Ellis, who helped adminsiter the program:
On her initial reaction to introducing the Noble program to third graders
When I first heard about the program, I was immediately interested and wanted to be involved in it. The thought of taking a high school level class and making it workable for 3rd graders, who were still learning how to work collaboratively, was daunting.
On what surprised her most
I loved hearing them use the high-level vocabulary that we taught them even after the Noble Impact project was over. When reviewing the picture books they were writing for the kindergarten classes in late May, I overheard one student tell another that her story was compelling.
Stay tuned. More good stuff to come.