Course Details:
- 2 live classes per week
- Subscription continues until paused or cancelled
- Live Class Length: 55 minutes
- 16 seats per section
- Homework is assigned
- Formal grades, Teacher feedback offered on homework, Teacher feedback given during class
- Materials
Students will need to purchase the online curriculum from TCI; however, we purchase it for you. This is covered in the “sign-up fee.”
Workers & Wages: Making Sense of Economics
$42.00 / week and a $32.00 sign-up fee
This course introduces students to the building blocks of economics and their own place within an economy. Students will discover how healthy economies align with God’s design and what happens when economic systems deviate from that design.
Section Options / Enroll:
- Description
- Lesson Schedule
- Class Intro Video
- A Biblical Worldview
- The Lemons-Aid Way
- Teacher Bios
- Outschool
- Request a Section
Description
Did your high schooler ever asked you why their first paycheck seems lower than they expected? Has your son expressed his desire to make $50 an hour by the time he graduates? Has your daughter noticed that her favorite clothes keep getting more expensive? Then have your student join us for Workers & Wages: Making Sense of Economics!
In this class, your student will discover what an economy is and what makes it tick. They will observe how individuals, businesses, and markets provide them with access to their daily needs and greatest wants.
Your student will learn about their own role in the economy and how they can leverage their own knowledge and skills to create economic win-wins in their daily lives. They will also discover the role of taxes and the impact of government spending on their ability to grow economically.
Finally, your students will see how human nature influences economies and what that tells us about the truth and reliability of Scripture.
Want a sneak peek? Here are a few things your student can expect:
– Understand: Discover how supply and demand affect their own employment options and personal spending habits
– Plan: Learn how to create a personal budget and how to prepare a business plan
– Work: Learn how to stand out to potential employers when looking for a job
Does this sound right up your alley? Then join us for Workers & Wages: Making Sense of Economics!
Lesson Schedule
This class will be broken down into five sections:
- Weeks 1-2: Economic Fundamentals
- An Economic Way of Thinking
- Economic Decision Making
- Economic Systems
- Gains from Trade
- Weeks 3-4: How Markets Work
- Demand and Supply
- Markets, Equilibrium, and Prices
- Market Structures and Market Failures
- Weeks 5-9: Economic Institutions and Organization
- Money, Banking, Saving, and Investing
- Intro of Personal Finance
- Entrepreneurs and Business Organizations
- Human Capital and the Labor Market
- Looking for Work
- Weeks 10-11: Economics & Government
- Government and the Economy
- Measuring the Economy
- Taxes and Taxation
- Fiscal and Monetary Policy
- Week 12-13: Global Economics
- The United States and the Global Economy
- The Costs and Benefits of Globalization
- Student Debates/Presentations
Class Introduction Video
Coming soon…
Taught From a Christian Perspective
Our mission is to equip learners’ minds and shepherd their hearts. We want them to have saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and then develop a biblical worldview. This means they view their world, themselves, and God in a way that aligns with what the Bible teaches. This brings great peace and understanding to the believer because we serve a good, sovereign God. This course is taught with these goals in mind. In class, we may pray, read scripture, and discuss how to view the content from a Christian perspective.
We have adopted The Master’s Seminary Doctrinal Statement.
SOCIAL STUDIES (history, government, economics):
The world of social studies is filled with ideas, some from the recent past and some that reach back millennia. No matter where an idea originates, we as Christians are commanded to take those ideas captive, test them, and compare them to the Word of God to see if they can stand up to the scrutiny of truth (2 Corinthians 10:5, 1 John 4:1, and Acts 17:11). In our social studies classes, we use the Socratic method to encourage and equip students to capture, test, and scrutinize the ideas they encounter.
In history, we encounter new ideas and study how those ideas have influenced the course of human events both for good and for evil. We see how different cultures and belief systems (such as Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) address the issues of human origin, identity, meaning, morality, and destiny, and we hold the answers each one presents up to the light of Scripture to see if there is any fault in them. By studying the effects of sin on human history (war, slavery, discrimination, and more), we learn to value human life, because every person who has ever lived reflects the image of God (Genesis 1:26).
In government and economics, we discover that God infused all of creation with a healthy structure for human life and flourishing, concepts known as natural law and natural rights. We contrast these ideas and Scripture itself with humanistic ideas (such as Marxism) that short-circuit God’s design and result in human suffering. Studying these ideas equips students with the tools they need to live as responsible, Christlike citizens and to make sound, biblically based decisions in the civic and economic realms.
✨ 🍋 ✨ Why Lemons-Aid? ✨ 🍋 ✨
A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW: The Bible, infallible and inerrant, is the very written word of God, who has revealed Himself to man. The Bible is like the light we cast on all content areas in order to understand it, whether that be literature, physical science, history, or geometry. Students learn all content through a Biblical lens. Theology is important for understanding all subject areas. We carefully curate courses that capture learners’ imagination while pointing them to God through sound doctrine. THIS is most important!
EXPLICIT TEACHING: We understand the skills and concepts students need to learn and know how to teach them. Lemons-Aid’s materials are top-notch, organized, and clear for students and parents to understand. We are especially skilled at breaking down a complicated process into understandable parts. Further, explicit instruction is “a structured, systematic, and effective methodology for teaching academic skills. It is called explicit because it is an unambiguous and direct approach to teaching that includes both instructional design and delivery procedures. Explicit instruction is characterized by a series of supports or scaffolds, whereby students are guided through the learning process with clear statements about the purpose and rationale for learning the new skill, clear explanations and demonstrations of the instructional target, and supported practice with feedback until independent mastery has been achieved.”
- Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching by Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes.
Anita Archer trained Mrs. Lemons in workshops, and it changed her teaching. Read a little more about the research behind explicit teaching here and here.
STUDENT ACCOUNTABILITY = ACHIEVEMENT: Students master skills with us and make gains. We have a high degree of accountability. Since we make promises here and parents are paying good money, we understand you trust us to work! Students have to work too, and let’s be honest: they’re kids and don’t always want to. We push it. We teach them how to stay engaged, we cold-call on kids, we tell them to use the chatbox, and we want them to use emojis! If they are resistant, we contact the student through the teacher tab first. If that doesn’t work, we call in the big guns–Mom and Dad. We want kids to learn. We don’t want them to pass through our classes without gaining skills and doing great learning.
DO HARD THINGS. Boost your confidence, master new skills, learn new concepts. This takes a commitment to do hard things. Like the standards we have for our teachers, we also expect our learners to do hard things, whether that means they stand firm in their convictions, learn geometry, write an essay, or give an oral presentation. You can do hard things!
HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS: To balance our high expectations for their learning and behavior, we build relationships with them. We want them to know we care about and know them. We’ll ask about their play last weekend or the new trick they’re trying to master on the skateboard. We also want students to get to know each other and encourage community engagement.
DEPENDABLE: Multiple teachers are teaching this class, and we have an entire year of lessons planned and scheduled. Since we are a mission-driven organization, we protect our brand and the relationships with our families. We are accountable to our learners. When things come up for teachers, we work to get substitutes and do everything we can before canceling a class. We do not like canceling or changing, and we often teach classes at a loss to give others a chance to join. We have limits, of course, but we are not flippant or irresponsible about canceling! When things come up for students, since we have multiple sections, they can transfer from section to section. All our teachers teach the same content the same week, giving families even more flexibility!
STUDY THE BEAUTIFUL
We are surrounded by the mediocre, which is not good! We see this in expectations at some schools, the poor customer service at a store, and even architecture like in a gray, uninspiring complex of high-occupancy housing.
In contrast, we are surrounded by the beautiful, which is good! We see the beautiful in classic literature, music, and beautiful architecture like pictured here.
The mediocre demoralizes learners while the beautiful inspires.
At Lemons-Aid Learning, we study the beautiful: classic literature, artful sentence construction, art, poetry, maths, God’s hand in all of history, and God’s very creation. His creation glorifies Him, and in our study of all content areas, we learn about who God is.
We do not compromise. This means we don’t choose a graphic novel of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We read the original play. We know how to make the complexity and beauty of classic study approachable and understandable to a modern audience. It’s more difficult, but worth the effort!
For over a century, progressive education reform has been “anti-content,” which means they de-emphasize rich content and focus instructional time on things such as self-esteem and “skills” they hope will benefit a learner in the future. This is why American kids do so poorly in testing compared to nations with content-rich curricula. We want our learners to increase in knowledge and grow in wisdom, which our content-area experts foster while teaching.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
We serve the Lord and we work hard for families. We work to give quick responses to questions, authentic and careful feedback, and to solve any conflict. As home educators ourselves, familiar with the joys and struggles of teaching our own children, we can relate! We are supporting families, equipping learners, and serving Christ. We are 100% devoted to Him and to you!
To read more about our teaching and learning methods, read our blogs, written by our teachers and staff.
The Lemons-Aid Team
Lemons-Aid teachers have a few things in common.
❤️ They love their students and value each of their unique strengths and personalities that make our classes special. Our classes can be described as fun, personal, academic, challenging, and supportive.
🤩 We work to keep learners engaged, so there is always a degree of student accountability for their attention and focus, whether that be through asking them direct questions or by using the chatbox.
💭 We know all kids can learn, but sometimes things are hard! To support students, we teach them how to develop effective thinking and learning habits that will bring them success in class and in life.
🌟 Building relationships with students so they know we care about them helps us balance the high expectations we have for them regarding their effort, work quality, and behavior. Our students are encouraged, cared for, and they achieve!
𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙎𝙢𝙮𝙩𝙝: History Social Studies
#patient, #encouraging, #relational, #passionate, #always learning
Mr. Smyth’s favorite book of the Bible is 1 Corinthians. He had the opportunity to visit the ruins of ancient Corinth, a place that made the book come alive. He especially likes that it includes the earliest known Christian creed (1 Cor. 15:3-5). Mr. Smyth graduated from Patrick Henry College with a Bachelor of Arts in Government. He earned a High School Social Studies teaching certification from Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) in 2015. He also studied hermeneutics (the study of biblical interpretation) at Gateway Seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention. Mr. Smyth has firsthand experience with and knowledge of the American electoral system and legislative system. In college, he supported the U.S. executive branch by providing helpful information and analysis to national security professionals. Since then, he has worked as a writer, researcher, and analyst. He is a lifelong student of history, government, and Scripture. Mr. Smyth’s classroom emphasizes connection, confidence, and critical thinking. He aims to help students enjoy the learning experience while they engage the material and exercise their minds. He sees himself as a coach and a cheerleader for each of his students. Mr. Smyth enjoys spending time with his family, going on walks (and generally spending time outside), watching/reading/listening to good stories, hands-on projects (like auto repair), and volunteering at church. He spends lots of time learning about history (American, British, church, and military are his favorites), machines (cars and airplanes, especially), and technology. He is also writing a historical novel in his spare time.
Christian Teachers on Outschool
This class is not currently offered on Outschool.
Request a New Section
Want to see this class offered at another time? Send a request, and we’ll see what we can do!