Episode #365: Entrepreneurship in Schools with Don Wettrick

Don Wettrick is the President and Founder of StartedUP, an organization dedicated to help transform the school culture toward innovation and enable student-led entrepreneurship.

He’s also Innovation Coordinator at Noblesville High School, and author of "Pure Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation and Taking 20% Time to the Next Level." Wettrick has worked as a middle school and high school teacher; educational and innovation consultant; CEO, and podcast host.

Don has lectured across the US, Europe, South America and Africa about collaboration, social media use, and work environments that enable innovation. Through his travel, he has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley to Ghana, and seeks to bring that entrepreneurial mindset into our classrooms. His podcast, StartEdUp, has featured some of the most successful entrepreneurs, authors, and thought leaders in the world- focusing on educational change.

Given my work with the Lemonade Stand program, I really enjoyed my conversation with Don, as we riffed on all things student entrepreneurship.

We covered myriad topics, including:

The difference between teaching entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking
Why the current tendency to play the victim card instead of take ownership is limiting the potential of today’s students and their contributions to the world; and
Where today’s K12 school system falls short, and how to plug these gaps

This only scratches the surface of what was discussed, so sit back, and enjoy my conversation with the one and only, Don Wettrick.

Topics Discussed:

Don’s mission
Today’s jobs that didn’t exist 20 years ago
The hedgehog theory
Skills v attitude
Conflicts of interest in the school system, often between parents and their children’s interests
Open-source learning in the K12 classroom
Creative ways to work within the constraints your current budget and system
Collaborating with experts and mentors to augment the K12 learning experience
Is STEM overrated?
Can teachers only teach children to become teachers?
Developing emotional fortitude and moving kids away from entitlement
The school system often prepares kids to be compliant and execute set procedure, but not to challenge the status quo and adapt to changes
Trojan Horse thinking
Always be testing
Create value for others first if you want to create value for yourself
Strong opinions, weakly held
The folly of standardized testing
Why giving our youth comfortable upbringings can be their undoing in adult life