Spring Break
SectionsKids discover 'real world'
Dee Dee Nilsen
Issue date: 11/9/04 Section: News
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Weston O'Dell has been elected mayor of SIFE City-at age 10.
SMS Students in Free Enterprise spent Monday helping 27 fifth graders from Delaware Elementary School operate their own fictional town, SIFE City, at Springfield's Discovery Center.
Students in Free Enterprise members spent the last four weeks training the fifth graders on how to function in the "real world" by teaching the basics of government, money management and the job market. Their new skills were put to the test when the younger students were instructed to run SIFE City for a day.
The fifth graders elected public officials, assigned each other jobs and went to work. Some produced goods at the "factory" and then sold them to make a profit, while other workers ran a news station, published a newspaper and operated a bank. Participants were then expected to use their "pay checks" to pay bills and buy groceries. Police officers patrolled the town while the mayor and judges made executive decisions.
SIFE members host the program once every semester as a way to further the group's mission to teach entrepreneurship, ethics, free markets and financial independence, according to SIFE President Jill Gumerman.
"It teaches them how to be responsible," Gumerman said. "And they get to experience how to work as a team, because there's a manager at every store and there are employees, so you have to learn how to cooperate whether you like each other or not."
Gumerman said she enjoys watching the kids learn life lessons while having fun.
"It's so great to see them learning without even knowing it," she said.
Many of the younger students chose to "take the role of their parents" and work jobs that they were familiar with, Gumerman said.
"They always ask how much money they're going to make, but they have to understand that everyone gets paid differently and everyone has different hours that they have to work," she said. "Sometimes some people don't get the best of jobs, but at least they have jobs. They have to experience that."
SMS Students in Free Enterprise spent Monday helping 27 fifth graders from Delaware Elementary School operate their own fictional town, SIFE City, at Springfield's Discovery Center.
Students in Free Enterprise members spent the last four weeks training the fifth graders on how to function in the "real world" by teaching the basics of government, money management and the job market. Their new skills were put to the test when the younger students were instructed to run SIFE City for a day.
The fifth graders elected public officials, assigned each other jobs and went to work. Some produced goods at the "factory" and then sold them to make a profit, while other workers ran a news station, published a newspaper and operated a bank. Participants were then expected to use their "pay checks" to pay bills and buy groceries. Police officers patrolled the town while the mayor and judges made executive decisions.
SIFE members host the program once every semester as a way to further the group's mission to teach entrepreneurship, ethics, free markets and financial independence, according to SIFE President Jill Gumerman.
"It teaches them how to be responsible," Gumerman said. "And they get to experience how to work as a team, because there's a manager at every store and there are employees, so you have to learn how to cooperate whether you like each other or not."
Gumerman said she enjoys watching the kids learn life lessons while having fun.
"It's so great to see them learning without even knowing it," she said.
Many of the younger students chose to "take the role of their parents" and work jobs that they were familiar with, Gumerman said.
"They always ask how much money they're going to make, but they have to understand that everyone gets paid differently and everyone has different hours that they have to work," she said. "Sometimes some people don't get the best of jobs, but at least they have jobs. They have to experience that."