Making a class, Part 1

I'm creating a class out of nothing. Sounds miraculous, doesn't it? Something out of nothing? You forget that I worked in advertising for 20 years, and making something out of nothing is exactly what we did. There's a certain purity to the ephemeralness of it.

So this class is about business math. Because "entrepreneur" is a hot word in educational circles these days, the class title is Math for Entrepreneurs. I feel like a journalist whose headlines are written by the editor (which is generally the way it happens). I am not and have never been an entrepreneur, but I grew up watching my dad build a huge business and worked with him in it for 10 years or so. I guess that makes me somewhat knowledgeable.

Math for entrepreneurs would not be appreciably different from any other kind of business math, except adding in the 95% failure rate for new businesses. It's not the best business path for everyone. There was an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday where Sean Parker, founder of Napster (Justin Timberlake in The Social Network) bemoans the fact that Internet entrepreneurs rarely go back for a second round if they succeed at something, even if they leave that business. Success is hard the first time, and once you have succeeded do you want to go back and do it again, knowing everything that had to break right for you to succeed the first time?

So how do you construct this course?  The class meets twice a week for 12 weeks, and I'm guessing the holidays will obstruct one or two of them, so I have to fill 22-24 classes. It's important to note here that I could easily spend 24 classes talking about whatever business related stuff pops into my head and everyone would have a grand old time. But I think the school administration actually considers this thing to be somewhat important. This opens the possibility for my looking lazy and stupid, and regardless of my true levels of laziness and stupidity, I prefer to not look that way. So prepare I must.

The nice thing about a short, circumscribed class like this is that I can (and did) start by taking a sheet of paper, writing the numbers 1-24 in the margin, and filling in the blanks with math stuff. The big question is how much knowledge should I assume, because if, for example, people don't know how to calculate percentage increase or find the vertex of a quadratic equation or add a column of numbers accurately, the fundamental analysis necessary for this class can't be done. So not only do I need to review, but I need to see what it is I need to review, which may be dramatically different for each student.

Plus I have to do all this without holding the cudgel of tests and grades over their heads. This leaves me with no choice but to try to design some form of public humiliation or other kind of negative reinforcement in case somebody slacks off.

Hopefully, however, everyone in there will want to be an active part of the class. At least at first. Once I start talking about the glories of accounting, all bets are off.

Next stop, fleshing out the outline. Starting with the next post, I'll provide links to the class outline and whatever kinds of materials I'm trying to incorporate.