Public schools, at their worst, tend to encourage a reactionary brand of liberalism. BIG GOVERNMENT is the medicine for what ails society in the minds of most teachers. Many public school curriculums do not do enough to cultivate entrepreneurship and self-reliance.
This being said, increasing numbers of students are interested in entrepreneurship, business and investments. Such encouraging curiosity runs contrary to the status quo at public schools; but students are not developing these habits at school, but from fantasy football and other games.
Owning a fantasy football team teaches children ownership. They alone are saddled with the success or failure of their team. It is comparable to owning a small business. While real schools cultivate self-esteem driven fantasy worlds for children, fantasy football is a zero-sum game of winners and losers.
Students who play fantasy football develop expertise in rating the value of individual players. This requires statistical analysis. Numbers are crunched and team needs are addressed. The search for undervalued players becomes essential to success.
These same students often develop an interest in business. The transition from rating players to rating stocks is not a huge one. Many students who play fantasy football are interested in business. They are not ready to run hedge funds yet, but they have watched Mad Money on CNBC. It should also be noted that the copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad that I keep in my classroom is worn out from being read by student after student. And now it is missing!
Fantasy sports are the inadvertent gateway to creating a new investor class in America. Free market economic theories are welcome in this world. There is even room for the limited use, via trades, of Game Theory, (reference the bar scene in A Beautiful Mind) but collectivist beware.
Marxists would be well served by avoiding this battle field, since not everyone can be a winner. Marxist economists, whose theories failed in reality, now cannot even succeed in a fantasy world. Perhaps American Universities should take notice.
Let us engage in an economic version or Friday Night Lights. I would bet Ladainian Tomlinson, the highly touted fantasy player who is on my team, that an on-line investment account managed by an astute group of high school students can outperform the returns generated by the Social Security System and most Defined Benefit Pension Plans.
Today they play football. Tomorrow they will clamor to privatize social security.
* The author of this post is a public school teacher with a background in business. The observations reported arise out of the author’s teaching experience.
