A few days ago, I wrote on BloggingStocks about a new study suggesting that most high school students don't know much about economics. Here's what I wrote:

What's a shame is that I really believe that economics could be made into the most interesting high school class if it was approached with creatitivity. In recent years, there have been a slew of amazing books on economics: Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist, Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, etc.

I bet that if schools ditched traditional textbooks and adopted a more user-friendly format, we would see these numbers skyrocket. People learn better when they're not bored.

Now The New York Times's Robert Frank seems to agree, in a great column called "The Dismal Science, Dismally Taught." He refers to studies suggesting that students fare no better on a basic economic literacy after taking a course than those who don't, and discusses an interesting method for teaching economics that he refers to as "economic naturalism," which seems very freakonomical.

Take a look at the column, and give a copy to every economics teacher you know.

Why aren't economics classes more freakonomical? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 12 Aug 2007 15:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.