Entrepreneurship

All thriving commerce requires an entrepreneurial spirit because business often depends on fresh, new ideas to be successful. Throughout the week, true life stories of various entrepreneurs and inventors will be shared with campers as they plot the course for their own invention and/or entrepreneurial businesses. By week’s end, they will brainstorm, design, create, patent and market an invention or business of their own.

Philanthropy

Thomas Edison once said, "I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others.... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent." Junior Achievement of Central Indiana is proud to offer opportunities for students to consider the value and importance of giving their time, talent and treasure for the common good. Each day, JA campers will participate in philanthropic activities designed to enhance student understanding of and appreciation for philanthropy.

Why Philanthropy? What does Philanthropy have to do with the economics of a city? Building on the important insights of Gaudiani's The Greater Good, JACI will invite campers to imagine what Indianapolis would look like if every building funded by individual donors were suddenly to disappear. The hospitals, museums, universities, theaters -- gone. What would offices look like if all the people educated with privately donated scholarships were suddenly to stay home from their offices, labs, operating rooms, studios, classrooms, court rooms? Indeed, without philanthropy, Indianapolis would look (and feel!) quite differently.

Experiential Learning and Your Child

The simulations within the Gene B. Glick Junior Achievement Education Center are designed around a concept called Experiential Learning.  As you might guess, this refers to a process that involves learning from experience. 

Throughout the experiential learning process, students should be actively engaged in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and constructing meaning.  They should take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for the results. 

Notice this did not suggest that students should do it the “right” way!  Yes -- failing IS an option within JA's Experiential Learning simulations.  And -- because of our highly trained facilitators and camp counselors -- we are comfortable allowing (even encouraging!) it. 

Some of the longest-lasting lessons are obtained after thinking through a choice that resulted in undesirable results.  That's why -- especially during summer camp -- JACI counselors encourage students to take on roles in the city that are different for them.  The camp directors do not assign "positions" in each business -- as is done during the school year.  Rather, every camper is asked to "rotate" through each job within the various shops.