“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.” -C.S. Lewis
To my mind, there is no doubt that many students enter economics classes with faulty logic and preconceived notions. In one of his syllabi, Henry Simons famously noted, “Academic economics is primarily useful, both to the student and to the political leader, as a prophylactic against popular fallacies.” But, I do not believe the aim should be to “cut down the jungle” and show people the faults in their logic. Rather, people will notice those faults when we “irrigate the deserts”.
When we impart inquiry and the joy of discovery to students everyone wins. Economics is the study of human action. If our students have ever looked out the window and wondered “why?”, we can, as students of social understanding ourselves, put on our economic detective hats and formulate a reasonable answer. After all, economics has been applied to help understand things people never thought it could like economics of the family, religion, and other topics. (Side note: if you’re really interested in the application of economic reasoning when you “look out the window” check out The Economic Naturalist and listen to these podcasts with Robert Frank here and here).
Once we have a theory for the mechanisms underlying a decision situation, let’s invite students to ask, “What are the testable implications?” Then we can lead students in their scientific development by asking, “How could we test that?” We can have a dialogue with students that begins with their passions and bolsters their critical thinking.
This is one reason I LOVE MOBLAB. Economics has models of how the world works. Then the instructor can use MobLab to populate those models with real humans. How accurately do our theories describe the data? A confirmation or failure of theory are both interesting. Confirmation gives us confidence. Failure tells us to keep looking! In my experience, students love this invitation to inquiry and comparing theory with data. It’s more fun for them and for us.