The most important lessons of an economic way of thinking haven’t changed much in 40 years. But the students have.
I’ve taught Principles of Microeconomics (“ECON 101”) regularly now for nearly a half-century. The first such course I taught was in the Fall Quarter of 1982 at Auburn University, my first year of graduate school there (after having received an M.A. in economics earlier that year from NYU). And except for a few years in the 1990s, I’ve taught ECON 101 every semester since, including in many summers. The total number of “micro principles” students whom I’ve taught over these years is likely in the neighborhood of 12,000. Mostly, I teach this course in auditoriums that hold between 200 and 350 students.
I never tire – and I’m sure that I never will tire – of walking into a classroom to introduce mostly 18-year-olds to the economic way of thinking. It’s still great fun and immensely rewarding, for I do regularly see the proverbial light bulbs being lit over many students’ heads.
My ECON 101 course is taught as if it’s the only economic course my students will ever take. Unlike many professors, I do not teach Principles of Microeconomics to prepare my students for Intermediate Microeconomics, which is the next course up in the curriculum. Some such preparation occurs, I’m pleased to report, but that’s all incidental. My chief goal is to inject my students with the rudiments of the economic way of thinking in order to inoculate them against the most virulent fallacies that are likely to try to infect their minds as they go through life.
What does that inoculation look like in practice? It begins with lessons such as these:
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Interesting read. I share most of his sentiments, though I will add a few disagreements:
Not true. Besides the standard stuff that economists do deal with, like currency regimes, there are a bunch of things that economists don't often deal with, like the fact that political borders are the boundaries of monopolies on violence, which seems like it should matter.
I wonder if he'd feel that way if his own children were one of those that needed special accommodations.
I, too, think the system is being abused, but I wouldn't write about it the way he does, which sort of assumes that abuse is more common that actual accommodation of needs, including his use of "need" in scare quotes, which is actually a bit offensive (boomer).
Personally I shoot for a balance. I want to make my course such that if it's the only econ course they ever take, they'll learn something lifelong from it. But I also want to prepare them for the rigors of higher level courses. As an non-Austrian Austrian sympathizing economist, I still place a high value on being able to understand the rigorous mathematical foundations of economic analysis.