If you wanted a child to grow and develop a head for business, what type of classes would you encourage him to take? Math? Science? Accounting? Surely you could make a case for each of these choices. But in an article for Inc. Magazine, Kevin Daum makes a pretty good case for the arts, specifically theater arts.
Daum argues, "Performing arts students must create a concept from scratch, refine it so they can articulate a compelling vision, recruit skilled labor, and manage everyone to completion on time and on budget, since moving opening night is never an option. They also get to sell their product and collect immediate customer response in the form of ticket sales and applause. This process is completed by millions of students several times a year, all over the world."
Of course, from a strengths perspective, we want kids to find the marketplace that leverages their passions and talents. If that happens to be math and science, that's wonderful. If that happens to be shop class, that's wonderful as well.
I maintain that I learned more about business from my high school baseball coach than any class I took. Ironically, he was also my high school business teacher and a very good one. But it was on the baseball field where I learned to compete, to win and lose, to understand the importance of both natural talent and developed skill and to cooperate with teammates toward a common goal.
Yet sports programs have been dropped, arts programs have been canceled and auto shop has been eliminated from the curriculum. I fully support science, technology, engineering and math or STEM classes. But they're not more important than theater arts, baseball or auto shop.
One would think that math and accounting are irreplaceable components of running any successful business. And maybe they are. But Richard Branson was already a full-fledge billionaire that had successfully started hundreds of businesses before his accountant was able to help him fully understand the difference between gross sales and net profit.
To read Kevin Daum's full article in Inc. click here
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