Preparing Students for the Real World

I agree 100 percent that we should introduce students to business concepts in high school, and also in any other grade levels of school where the students could learn and be better prepared for the real world.
College is not easy, it is a totally different world from high school, and it is a different kind of teaching that students are adapted to which requires a lot more discipline and focus on your studies, something that high school just does not give. When I went to high school, there were mandatory college prep courses I had to take in order to graduate to the next grade level, as well as points to receive just to graduate and get my diploma.
Most high school students now are given a parameter of courses outlined

I agree also. As part of the graduating class of 2005 from High School I must say that my school had offered buisness classes. Our school had a basic accounting class which was basics for life such as balancing a check book and pay stubs but that was the extent of it.

Its funny that this topic came up. I vividly remember comming to the realization shortly after high school that I knew absolutely nothing about business. Back then there were decent book stores, but the internet had not hit the scene then. I did my best to learn what I could on my own and from those willing to each, but it was a struggle. From that time, I always contended that our schools were failing kids

Donny. You bring an excellent discussion to the table. I can relate to you 110%. You know why? Because in just one month I will be graduated from high school altogether. I'm not sure if this applies to the American schooling system but I live in Australia and over here we have *options* for entering courses that teach business skills. Some of these courses include: business studies, business services, accounting and obviously economics. I think it should be made essential though that a student learns the necessary skills to manage money and build a sense of entrepreneurship.

I have loved the topic of business since I was the age of 12. And to tell you the truth. I've learned a truckload more out of my own learning experiences than I ever have at school.

Like our dear friend George W. Bush said: "It is entrepreneurship that creates jobs and opportunities;
it is entrepreneurship that helps break the cycle of poverty; and we will
take the side of entrepreneurs as they lead the economic revival of the Gulf
region." - President George Bush, September 15 2005.

I say prepare students and future graduates for the "real life" ahead of them,

I agree 100%. I would like to add though, that more important than the availablity of such courses and studies, is the need for encouragement of the entrepreneural spirit and the instilling of capatalistic ideals into the potential students of such courses. In my dealings with people...I have found that it is easier to teach someone HOW to do something after they know WHY to do it. While many future business leaders will "morph" into there niche through studies and experiences, we must ask ourselves how many, many more would follow suit should there be an embedded system in our middle schools, high schools, etc... to motivate and lead the students into the direction of business leadership, start ups and ownership. While students of families that own business' may have this built in system at home, I would put a c-note on a bet that most of this next centuries business owners will come from blue collar backgrounds and therefore will need the availability of such a program.
When I was a junior in high school we had an assembly one day dedicated to different careers.Many different occupations were represented that day, from Nurses to the Military and even the local paper mill that my father worked at as an electrician. One man , to this day I do not know his name, gave a presentation on owning your own business. Included in the presentation was information on how business owners employ many people in the communities, there were charts on how to write out goals, how to write out ideas for businesses, finding needs and filling them.Lightning Struck!!I wanted more......it was not available at the school.(most guidance counselors are not equipt to handle the question"how do I start my own business after I get out of school?") On a side note, she punched some data into a computer program and found out I should be an architectural engineer, a noteworthy profession..just not mine.I did however complete 2 semesters of AE, dropped out, excelled in sales, then started several businesses. Yes, high schools should have the potential to better prepare students with business skills......but that is secondary behind the nuturing of a willing mind.

Spot on!

High School subjects are so "behind the times" these days that many students can't even write a business letter.

Business education should be the absolute core of High School. All subjects should flow from this core, because, let's face it, no matter what career path a person chooses they are involved in "business" activities in one way or another.

The big question is: Will the "establishment" agree with the need to change what is taught at High Schools, or will they want to cling onto their English Classes (movie reviews and theatre - yawn!) and the like!

Donald Trump said it well. In the Philippines for wxample, that's almost the same sentiment I have. The reason why our country is still in the process of development (since the beginning of time) is that we have a weak education system.

It is good to hear such idea from the Donald. I think, if every nation would adopt or at least consider this thought, perhaps we could move on a little better.

Education, as one of the basic foundation of development must not be confined in the four corners of the classroom. Much less that it must never be limited to teach employment. As said, we really must start thinking business so eventually we can do business.

We still have a long way to go in the Philippines. Just recently, we won the Ms. International Title. I think Trump principles must be considered

I attend the Rochester Institute of Technology. One big thing that we do is cooperative education. This helps to give students more real world practical business experience. It pays off so much in the long run.

Schools have to function in a way to give every person a chance to find their own creative power.Every human being has something uniq . If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.So, I think that the young people have to find out their endless sea and the rest will come through people with wisdom and knowledge and wright path.

Back up a little....a business basics course would be great, but how about making sure kids can speak proper English, do basic math, and know where the United States is on a map? The bar is too low for the basics, let alone business or other specialties. Good foundations first!!

Donald, how many high school know how to balance a checkbook when they graduate? All studends need certain basic business skills to compete effectively.

I am a Presidential Scholar as well as a business major, and I could not agree more with Mr. Trump. Aside from a few basic economic discussions, there was nothing in high school that prepared me for a future in business. Basically, if one wants to develop a "business mind" early in life, it is up to them to get involved. There are many well-respected businessmen and women who act as mentors as well, and without them our future generation would be in serious trouble.

Then again, this is just one of many reforms that our well-acclaimed educational system is in dire need of... and I can only hope that progress is being made.

First and foremost (if the rumours are true) congratulations. Having two kids of my own under 2 (Arian and Kiyan), I'm always thinking "how to educate them and what path they are going to take in the future". Preparing children for the real world starts at an early age. "Children imitate what they see and hear" , "children are like sponges that absorb everything", if you nurture a child's gift, anything is possible.

Recently, I visited a pizza parlor in my old nieghborhood and a 4 year old handled the money. I remember the conversation and it blew my mind, and made me realize what I have to do with my kids. The boy asked his father "how much is it going to be,dad", he responds "15 dollars". I gave him a 20 dollar bill, he says "he gave a green one", he presses a button and the register opens, his father replies, "give him a blue one back". The boy kindly says, "here's five". Totally amazed,I took the bill and placed it in the tip jar,and said, "thanks, how old are you". He responds,"four". This situation made me wonder, "where is this child going to be in the future with a proper education and guidance".

I agree with you Mr. Trump. You don't learn much of anything new in High school, outside of math, that one has not learned every year from 3 rd grade on. How would you expand classes beyond what you might learn in grade school when you have a large quantity of schools where there are more gangs and violence then education within the school. These things would be easier to assimulate into high schools in the more upperclass communities, but would be difficult in areas of poverty.

One of the reasons for this deficit is that the public education system does not prepare people to be leaders but followers. Business courses in high school are geared for those who are not anticipating college. Think that a business magnet high school geared for those who want to major in business in college is an idea whose time has come. Donald, why don't you talk to the mayor of New York and see what an investment in this type of school can do?

I am also in agreement with Mr. Trump. However, a good portion of high school students are riding on Mommy and Daddy's coat tails and do absoluty nothing for them selves. My parent's made me get a part time job and I had chores at home as well. Responsibility is one of the best preperations for the "Business World" and "Life" for that matter. My son is fortunate enough to be doing a internship at a local news paper office. A signifigant amount of his class mates have interships with their parents just so they can get out of school early. So the point is really it does not matter what the schools offer unless the parents are willing to stop catering to the kids and let them learn real life lessons at school and at home. Nothing in life is free, you have to earn it and be responsible to take care of it.

If I can add one more thing.We teach our children to be competitive.But, we teach them them to be competitive with "others".There is no "others"in life playground that has to be win, but only ourselfs with our weakness.So , the main lessons have to be CREATE POWER WITHIN SELF, CONQUER WEEK THOUGHT WITHIN SELF, CREATE PLANET WITH INNER BEAUTY.Maths, english , economics...is just a brush in a painters hand.

aristotle once said: "knowledge is an end in itself". Therefore, why does highschool have to be a preparation for a business career. Isn't it terribly parochial for highschools to expect that every student is going to study BUSINESS in their years at college. I'm sure many of us can think of something more rewarding. I mean, it's only when we lose our ideals that we start loving money. Who when they were four years old said: "i want to be a commercial lawyer", instead of saying "i want to be a doctor and help people". I know i didn't. As for teaching business in schools, that's fine.. The school i attend offers accounting and economics courses. They are very first rate. I think that knowlege of math, science, english - notably the literary canon should be encouraged.. Why can't we leave the specialisation when the education system becomes post-compulsory, in college? Is it really too hard to ask?

Donald,

I agree with you that we need better education. I also think we need to add education and training in the trades. College is not for everyone and some fit better into a trade. The High schools should focus on trades like construction and other trades as the tradesman are far and few between. I am sure in your business Donald you have seen that quality tradesmen/women are hard to find.

Peggy

As an European I had an opinion of US based businessmen having wrong values for us after my graduation. After working in USA and learning to know personally some American businessmen through Dr. Irwin, who used to be my boss and mentor, I have changed my opinion, and learned a lot, even I am not anymore in high school.

I believe, that using the "Apprentice" material in high schools could already help strudents to learn to understand what is expected from them if they want to go in business life. Your personal comments and valuable advises could really pay back in increasing these students ability to understand business. I am using succesfully some of your principles now consulting my clients, and I would expect high school students to gain even more of those.

Dear Donald, I am delighted that you took to courage to mention about education.

In our present generation, good and quality education is the best thing anyone would think of archiving. That puts me in the opinion that we truly need a better education. But How?

How is such a better education possible if most leaders would advise the young that EDUCATION IS NOT FOR THE POOR AND IF THEY CAN AFFORD IT THEY SHOULD TRY IGNORANCE? Do you agree with such philosophy?

How can we change such view about education being so expensive and not for the poor?

Basically, we have a lot of poor people on earth and it's not everyone that is opportune to be rich or come from a rich background, so what are the possible avenues and procedure or concept you would establish to make education possible and affordable?

You mention that we need to prepare students for the real world, Of course I agree with you but I think there's no possibility or physibility that with the present situation of things, students can be educated about the real world situation.

What exactly do you mean

Education problem: If I give You a puzzle with 500 parts but no picture, would You done it?Ever?But if I give You a picture in front of You , you can do it in one day.Thats the problem with education,globally.There is 500 hundred tools but is there any vision in front of our children?

This message is for Ina, give me a puzzle with 500 pieces and no picture, and I'll solve it. First, I'd work on the edges, then I would put similar colored pieces together, then slowly, a picture would form. EDUCATION STARTS AT HOME!!! I bet when Mr. Trump's father was working in real estate, Mr. Trump knew in high school where he was headed, and I'm pretty sure it would be similar for his kids.

Dear Lakhbir, you are wright in everything you said.I was talking about broken dreams,life without vision.I know that you are a fighter and there is a few people who can solve the puzzle without picture.Regards from Croatia!

I was talking about broken dreams because I grew up as a teenager in a country which was bloded in horrible war 15 years ago. My father was a soldier, my town was bombarded once and a guy I knew died, i watch mass masakr of children and people in nearest towns.My eyes saw broken dream of this beautiful planet.We need people like You, Lakhbir,to solve the puzzle and
make a beautiful picture.

This was a great story, Donald you I love this site! Great Univeristy...

I agree, Mr. Trump. Students have so little preparation in high school. Much worst, some can't count. I'll site an example. I went to McDonalds, it took a while for the cashier to give me a change. Her cash register got broken but the shelf where the money are is open, so she have access to the money. She went inside their office and came back with a calculator. She doesn't know how to subtract $3.95 from $5.00.

I share the same sentiment with Lloyd Luna regarding the with the Philippines' PUBLIC SCHOOL system. But don't forget to mention our private schools are GOOD, and we have high standard colleges.

In the 70's Philippines is called the TIGER OF ASIA because our economy is very strong. It's the government corruption that started it all. There were BUDGET CUTS for EDUCATION. There are many good public schools before, it is where our past presidents and senators went. But we don't teach business classes in high school, I really wish they will include that in the curriculum.

I think if schools concentrated more on Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, and less on social(ist) indoctrination, they would have more time to offer practical business courses. I always said that they should offer basic skills early on, like managing a bank account, balancing a checkbook, then later in high school, teach more logical business practices

If there were a business course when I was in high school, I will be more confident to build my own small business today. But right now, I am just starting to learn. I am very confident with my skills and talent, but I need to learn how to market them and make business out of them. I need an excellent business plan. My say here is, it is good to start early, the schools should start implementing basic to advance business math and business course in high school. Like fundamentals of accounting, business law, marketing, banking and finance.

Hello!
I fully agree with your opinions about entrepreneurship classes in High School. I studied one year in the Chicago area and took a class called Entrepreneurship. Although it was fun I didn't get a real foundation for how to build a company. In Sweden we have, as I know you have in the US too, an organization called Young Entrepreneurs. In the US, it may have another name. I was a Young Entrepreneur a year ago and what that means is that me and a friend ran a, what we call, Youth Company. It's not really a registered company but you need to do bookkeeping, get revenues and do all the other things that you need to do in a real company. Writing an offer, invoices and such. It was a great experience and that has helped me a lot now when I'm starting my own business.
In Sweden we have over 10.000 students who take this course each year. In a country with 9 million people that's a great number. And it help us to develop our country to become better.
I also attended a Young Entrepreneur week where Sweden's 200 best young entrepreneurs got to attend classes with some of Swedens's greatest entrepreneurs and other interesting people. That's maybe something you should consider if you don't have anything like it.
Thank you for a great learning place and don't forget to support this organization as much as you can because it's a great help for many teenagers.

Yours sincerely / Christoffer Hansson

I understand that in many schools the preparation for college level business classes is inadequate. Yet, there are some examples of great business programs. I am a high school business teacher in Orlando, FL. I feel that we do a great job of preparing our students to enter a college of business. We have a unique curriculum that allows students to experience an office/business setting here at school. Our classrooms in our business department are transformed into offices where students learn many of the skills that are necessary to be successful in the business world. Our classes are also big fans of "The Apprentice." We watch it every week as a class and discuss the results. We also have great class projects that our students get to take part in as if they were on interview to be Mr. Trump's next APPRENTICE.

I absolutely agree. I am a graduate student finishing my MBA and would like to teach business courses at the high school level. The local school system here does not have a formal curriculum in this area and does not seem interested in doing so. The question is, how do we make this happen?

Thanks Mr. Trump for helping us to move Business Education forward. At Schenectady High School we currently have a "house" devoted to business entitled "The School of Global Commerce". We offer a few different marketing courses, banking, computer apps, and other traditional business courses. Additionally we are currently operating a live branch of our local credit union, and we were the first school to conduct a "Junior Apprentice" program where we put students through the same type of thing as the TV show. It was very successful and the winner received $750.

i agree. I think that all high schools should mandate a certain amount of business credits needed to graduate, as they do with other core classes.

Member1505482
I am certainly going to be very happy when this message gets accross to the board, but IT is true each trouper must find and detail for its self. You will find the way when you put your heart in it

I thought your insert Thank-You for your courage to stand up for students is terrific Our God will bless you as he has Donald Trump Happy Blogging

Honestly, until I read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", I had no idea that I even had a choice between working in a business/being a "professional" and owning a business. School prepares kids for college, which prepares kids for jobs. It treats the business world like it doesn't exist. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" ... "A fireman!" ... (= occupation/job)

I also wish someone would have told me the point of life is to not to reach a certain status but to network/win-win with others and create value. I had poor social skills growing up (so I thought), so naturally it seemed obvious I become a "professional".

So are you working collaboratively with Junior Achievment , DEKKA, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and 4-H to develop business training programs for high school students?

To correct a comment left by the last poster, students would be members of DECA, not DEKKA. Please verse yourself about business focused student organizations.

I teach business in high school and while the students love the courses once they are enrolled, it is a struggle to advocate for our department and our offerings. If you are not discussing math, English, or science, then your ideas often fall on deaf ears.

I often ask, who is preparing our students with 21st Century skills? It is the business courses that introduce accounting software, business simulation software, multimedia applications, office productivity software, digital pens, wireless slates, interactive white boards, internet research, and the list goes on. Students certainly aren't learning these skills in English, math, or science. All that is going on in those classes is teaching to the almighty test which our society uses to cast judgement on a student's worth or value. I HAD to take anatomy, art, Spanish, and triginometry to earn my bachelor's degree in finance. Why? At no point in my 16 year career as a public school teacher, have I had to review my 'trig' notes to figure out my lesson plans for business law or entrepreneurship.

I am disgusted by the way we 'discard' students who choose to pursue careers in business, art, music, or even (gasp) woodworking or welding. Ironically, a student in my last entrepreneurship class had been written off by all his teacher for two years, he was a 'C' student at best, yet was getting his landscaping business up and running. By the end of the course, his business was up and running with employees, all necessary insurance, tax permits, advertising, business plan,and he cleared $8K profit four months later when the landscaping season began! Now many of the same faculty and staff who thought he was worthless pay him for landscaping their property.

America needs to change its priorities in regards to education.