Teaching Economics

[Geee]

Townhall:

Having taught economics at a number of colleges for a number of years, I especially welcomed a feature article in the June 22nd issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, on how economics courses with the same name can be very different at different colleges. It can also be very different when the course is taught by professors in the same department who have different approaches.

The usefulness of the three approaches described in the article depends on what the introductory course is trying to accomplish.

One professor taught the subject through a steady diet of mathematical models. If the introductory economics course is aimed at those students who are going to major in economics, then that may make some sense. But most students in most introductory economics courses are not going to become economics majors, much less professional economists.

Among those students for whom a one-year introductory course is likely to be their only exposure to economics, mathematical models that they will probably never use in later life, as they try to understand economic activities and policies in the real world, may be of very limited value to them, if any value at all.

If the purpose of the introductory course is to serve as a recruiting source for economics majors, that serves the interest of the economics department, not the students. It may also serve the interests of the professor, because teaching in the fashion familiar in his own research and scholarship is a lot easier than trying to recast economics in terms more accessible to students who are studying the subject for the first time.

Having written two textbooks on introductory economics -- one full of graphs and equations, and the other with neither -- I know from experience that the second way is a lot harder to write, and is more time-consuming. The first book was written in a year; the second took a decade. The first book quickly went out of print. The second book ("Basic Economics") has gone through 4 editions and has been translated into 6 foreign languages.

Both books taught the same principles, but obviously one approach did so more successfully than the other. The same applies in the classroom.

[Draggingtree]

The Ever-Present “Unexpected” Strikes Again

Posted by John Hitchcock on 2012/07/02

 

Hot Air’s Erika Johnsen, writing about the lower levels of support for Obama among the very young voters, hits on economics. And the ever-present “unexpected” laugh line strikes again.

And with Obama at the helm, it isn’t looking like there’s an end in sight — as Jim Pethokoukis summarizes, several of our already-anemic growth indicators are starting to slow up even more. The hits just keep on coming (unexpectedly, of course):

New data suggests the three-year economic expansion — as anemic as it has been — may be at an end, or is at least perilously close. The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index unexpectedly fell to 49.7 in June from 53.5 a month earlier. A reading of less than 50 signals contraction.

Not one of 70 economists interviewed by Bloomberg thought it would be below 50.5. …

But these numbers are just the latest in a long string of worrisome reports including rising initial unemployment claims, slowing job growth, falling consumer confidence, and declining durable goods orders. Oh, and the rest of the global economy is slowing, too.

All these so-called economics experts, Keynesians to a man, who are constantly surprised by the bad economic numbers, and the Left keeps going to them for advice. Keynesianism has been a proven failure in the economically collapsed European community, in faltering China, in faltering US. Where there is real growth in the US, it is despite Obama and the Democrats, not because of them. I give you Texas, which has been an economic leader for at least 10 years. I give you Wisconsin, which threw off the Leftist Government and replaced it with Conservative governance. I give you Ohio and Pennsylvania, which threw off their Leftist Government and installed a far more Conservative Government.

As far as the Leftist position, I give you California, which has seen years of job-and-people flight to far more business-friendly states (like Texas and Utah). I give you Illinois, which has been Democrat-and-corruption-run (but I repeat myself) for quite some time, and pumped in the largest tax increases in Illinois’ history — to results completely “unexpected” by the “experts” but fully warned about by Conservatives (including here on this site, multiple times).

The Keynesian economic “experts” upon whom the radical Leftists so adamantly depend, will always be surprised by actual economics as they continue to tout their abysmally failed economic “theory”. As Conservatives and Republicans (not necessarily the same thing, but Conservatives already knew that) gain more governmental leadership in 2012 and implement much more Austrian Economic theory (the Hayek approach), the Keynesian economists will scream and kick and fight and bite, declaring the end of the world. But the economy will rise out of the Leftist Keynesian ashes, like a Phoenix. Read More http://truthbeforedishonor.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-ever-present-unexpected-strikes-again/