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Junior Achievement
Have you ever sighed, with some exasperation, “Kids today, they just don’t get it!”
YOU can help those kids, right now at their teachable and impressionable age, understand that money doesn’t grow on trees, that wants are not needs, and that workers are the backbone of a really exciting economy they take for granted. And because you are equipped with so many colorful materials and fun learning activities from Junior Achievement, they actually look forward to learning with you!
Junior Achievement is the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating young people about business, economics, and free enterprise. Williston is fortunate to have a successful and growing Junior Achievement program brought to the area by the Chamber of Commerce’s Partners in Education team. You’ll find JA volunteers in District 1, St. Joseph’s Elementary, and Trinity Christian Schools, at various levels in grades 1-8. That’s a lot of classrooms, and it takes a lot of volunteers to make it happen.
This is how the Junior Achievement program works. All kinds of people from the business community are provided training and a time tested kit of lesson plans and colorful hands-on materials to help young people understand the economics of life. The volunteer and the teacher decide on a workable visitation schedule. The volunteer visits a total of five or six sessions, each about forty-five minutes in length. During each visit the volunteer makes the prepared curriculum come alive with their personal experiences.
Understanding the economics of life is a building process. First graders learn why their parents go to their jobs, second graders grasp the importance of individual workers in a group as they assemble doughnuts, third graders create a city using cut out buildings and learn about the many businesses that meet a community’s needs, with fourth and fifth grades broadening the scope to include the economics of a state and the nation as a whole. Middle school kids learn about their own personal finances, budgets, the cost of credit and they even experience some practice in the stock market and then move on to the global marketplace.
Junior Achievement is not “an addition to an already packed curriculum.” Correlations of the various JA programs to specific ND educational standards help teachers reach their teaching goals across a wide variety of subject areas.
Be a Junior Achievement Volunteer! Contact Darci Grindheim at darci@willistonchamber.net or call 577-6000 for more information. A child may always remember you for the valuable life lessons you taught them. Your personal involvement will not only stretch and enrich your own life, but it will build practical economics into the lives of young people in our own community.
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