using business questions bruce duggan providence college

Using Business Questions

Bruce Duggan

Providence College

Thesis

business questions in high school can be interesting to students

• fun for teachers

a good way to teach issues in• history

• world affairs

• ethics

• Christianity

6 Possible Classes

1. How did that shoe get attached to your foot?

2. Ask an entrepreneur

3. Water, water, everywhere

4. AIDS drugs for Africa

5. Tear gas and sewing machines

6. What’s a fair slice of the wealth?

1

1: How did that shoe…?

the shoe as geography history ethics

Business Issues

we debate business all the time• so do some of our students

the issues matter there is no Christian consensus

• that frees us in the classroom

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/sweatshops.htm\

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

long hours

repetitive work

conditions vary

wages near country averages

workers similar to youhttp://www.goiam.org/issue.cfm?cID=4459

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

http://www.reuters.com/article/forexNews/idUSTRE49M0NQ20081023?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

5: Tear Gas & Sewing Machines

roughly 158m children working in world 11% less in 2006 than 2002 70% working in agriculture

• others in street vending domestic servants sex trade

http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_44437.html

http://www.ilo.org/ipec/areas/Agriculture/lang--en/index.htm

http://www.ilo.org/ipec/areas/lang--en/index.htm

Business News

every story contains a business question bailouts layoffs Madoff fashion fame

6

6: A Fair Slice?

incomewealth

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-202-x/2003000/4071497-eng.htm

http://www.td.com/economics/special/dt1206_wealth.jsp

6: A Fair Slice?

Imagine a factory 200 employees

• 1 CEO 5 Vice Presidents 20 mid-level managers & foremen 154 line workers 20 low-skills jobs

Rawls “the original position” “the veil of ignorance”

http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/crs/36/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/

6: A Fair Slice?

Why? Does reality match your ideal? How did it get this way? Should we change it?

• How?

Would any of your answers be different if you weren’t a Christian?

Role

my notion to supply

• missing information

• missing views

to facilitate• graceful debate

• transitionsparticular general

secular Christian

What is a teacher’s role in these discussions?

Resources

1-sheets PowerPoint Books

• Ebert, R. J., Griffin, R. W., & Starke, F. A. 2009. Business Essentials. 5th Canadian ed. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada. ISBN 978-0-13-240575-1.

me• bruce.duggan@prov.ca