Hillsdale (Day 2)

A new day! A new experience! It's time for our students to learn about free trade and the founding fathers principles. Today, Brian introduced the next two assignments for the students to add to their agenda:

1. The Founding Father Principles project: The project will help each group explore a "founding father" principle (the values that George Washington and John Adams championed) that support entrepreneurship in this country.
2. The Virtual Trade Mission: This project places the companies in the position of "International Development Manager" in an American company seeking to expand it's exports to the next big emerging market! Each company will virtually (theoretically) export a product to a foreign country!

Both of which are due on the last day - Thursday! Now is when the students usually start freaking out - but no sweat! It's all about time management. They will be amazed at what they can be the end of the weak when they learn to prioritize and delegate.

Now for one of my personal favorite events - the Emerging Issues Debate! Each company will be assigned a "negative" position and an "affirmative" position for two different issues. Two companies are called onto the stage at a time and they TYPICALLY have three minutes to discuss, organize and decide on their debate points. However, we are doing things a little different this time! This week, we are giving each of the teams over an HOUR of preparation time to debate their topic. With the additional time allotted, we expect the students to deliver educated, well thought-out points of argument. The following are the debate topics for this week:

• Should citizens be allowed to carry a firearm on private properties, such as restaurants?
• Should citizens be forced to pay for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act?
• Should municipalities, public school boards, be allowed to open a meeting if they choose, with a public prayer?
• Should the owners of the Clippers, Donald Sterling, be forced to sell his team? Is the action taken against him a violation of free speech?
• Should the Washington Redskins change their name due to racial insensitivity?
• Should school administrations do away with the "valedictorian/salutatorian" system at graduation and move to a Latin-based system (magna cum laude, etc.)?

It's a lot to take in - but with the additional time to research, the students really exceeded expectations! Sometimes the students had to argue for an opinion they personally did not hold, but in debates, it's a good idea to know how to argue for your opposition to know their arguments as well as they do.

The students then watched a video that means a lot to the Helms Center. The video is put on by The Heritage Foundation and is called "We Still Hold These Truths." The video is about American's founding principles and how they are the best access to permanent truths and the best ground from which to question the current direction of our nation. You can watch the video below:

Then it was time for Brian's favorite game - "Ask the Expert." Brian called on our fellow counselor, Zach, to come up on stage and participate in the demonstration of the game. Zach is going to be an expert in something. He doesn't know what just yet - but as soon as Brian tells him, Zach has to jump into character and BE that expert! Today, Zach is a world-renowned Sasquatch Hunter! He even graced us with a few of his "Sasquatch calls" that he uses when he's hunting. The students then critiqued Zach on his public speaking and presentation skills. Was he confident enough? Did he speak clearly? Was he enthusiastic? Did he seem to know his stuff? What did he do with his hands? All of these things are very important when giving a presentation!

We also watched a video of a great speech deliverer...Jimmy V.

All of this lead into introducing our next, very important assignment for the students...the speech contest. Two representatives from each company will get a chance to shine! Each person will have 3-5 minutes to give a well-developed speech on a specific topic with logical thoughts and arguments. The students have until Wednesday at 1 PM to decide on their speakers and hope they use all of the public speaking skills we learned today while presenting their speeches.

After the speech introduction, we needed a little break from all of the "work and no play" environment.

So we went outside to play a few games! An FELC personal favorite - Trainwreck. All of the students stand in a circle with their shoes placed behind them to hold a "spot." One person in the middle introduced themself and says a little something about them that's unique (such as "I play soccer" or "I have 2 siblings" or "my favorite color is red"), then whoever else in the outside circle has that in common has to run to the middle and try to find a different spot! If you 're last to grab a spot, you're in

the middle and have to introduce yourself! The game is a great way to laugh, have a little fun and get to know something about everyone.

Time for what the students have been waiting for all day - time to put their companies! After dinner, it was time for activities and selling, selling, selling! Concessions had a little snag in their plan - really, really LOW priced vending machines. Might be time to put some supply/demand into effect to try to beat that kind of competition. The entertainment companies are hosting movie nights, karaoke parties and sporting events. Style was taking pre-orders for the absolutely fab tye-die T-shirts they plan to give out at the end of the camp! Everyone was pretty swamped with company activities and FELC assignments - needless to say, it was a very busy night!