Mock businesses, real experiences

Paul Sisco, a teacher at Silver Stage Middle School, decided to do real-life learning activities in his language arts classes because they are not only fun, but develop basic reading skills that are essential for functioning in the real world.

He started the school year having students create catalog order forms and home pages for mock businesses, and the students seemed to really enjoy it. Now, he regularly gives lessons using realistic graphic representations of items they will encounter in real life, such as bank statements, utility bills, job applications, tax forms, etc.

Last month, students created their own job applications for each of their mock businesses, such as "Promise Photos," "Bear Salon," "BMX Painters" and "Wakeboard Paradise."

Then, during a classroom job fair, they each selected some applicants with which to do a formal interview. Austin Davis, owner of "Wakeboard Paradise," felt that dressing for success was very important and demonstrated that during his formal interview. While each business owner interviewed a potential applicant, the rest of the class acted as a hiring board to help each business owner decide. The formal interviews were taken seriously.

"They all performed outstanding and in a very competitive spirit," said Sisco.

Currently, students have been given real checkbooks (with nonfunctional checks, of course), real check registers and real deposit slips, courtesy of Greater Nevada Credit Union in Carson City. The students must now manage their company's checking account by paying bills, as well as depositing profits into their classroom ATM machine. You can sense the reality of it all ... students know their mock companies they worked so hard on have the opportunity to be successful or go bankrupt, depending on the decisions they make.

• Paul Sisco is a language arts teacher at Silver Stage Middle School in Silver Springs.