The Invisible Hand - New Release

The Invisible Hand isn’t so invisible after all! 

The entire global economy boils down to two people: a buyer and a seller. And the system works best when the seller has the buyer’s best interests at heart. But even if the seller is acting strictly in his own interest, good things happen – we get what we want! 

Over 200 years ago, a Scottish philosopher named Adam Smith came up with revolutionary ideas about how things work. Those ideas are easy to see in the world around us. 


Visit a bakery in Scotland to witness supply and demand, and to learn how businesses know the prices at which they can sell their products and what they should offer customers. Then go to eBay to see the Invisible Hand in action, showing how economic systems can self-regulate without a “Man of Systems” micro-managing every transaction, and how trust and reputation are critical to sellers. 

Click here to choose as your FAV (Free Annual Video). Click here to purchase.

We Will Change the World by Dave Smith

I'm fortunate that students at Garden Spot Middle School in New Holland, Pennsylvania have really big hearts.  

A large percentage of them know what it’s like to live below the poverty line because their families do, and in turn, they have real empathy for others around the world that live in difficult situations. Some have first-hand knowledge of growing up in a country like Haiti. And they have powerful stories to share with their classmates.  


For example, every day our Haitian student’s family would wake up early to go to school. Then after school they walked for miles with their father, hauling five-gallon jugs from the village well up the mountain to their house, so that they would have drinking water for their family—an amount that would last for only a day.

Just like those students, people around the world have powerful stories to tell. It is critical in this global community we all live in now that every student is made aware of how others around the world live. Living standards are different in most countries, and we’re fortunate here in America. 

As a teacher, the best way I have found to do this is by incorporating the Pennies A Day video. Pennies a Day shows firsthand how the idea of microloans plays out in the real world. Microloans are a critical component to helping end world poverty, so I've made giving microloans to people around the world a key component of our class’s service projects.  

In my classroom, I give students the opportunity to replicate in real life what they see done in the video. We use the website, www.kiva.org to lend out $25 to entrepreneurs all over the world.  The kids do what they can to raise money in a variety of ways, and then choose whom they want to lend to on the website, and then we do the loans live in class. It makes it even more real to the kids, and takes the lesson from the kids hearing about it, to seeing it, and finally to doing it. Most importantly, by making it “real” to them, they see that even they--at 13-years-old--can really make the world a better place.  I tell students that we not only can change the world, but we will change the world.  

I had the opportunity and pleasure of hearing my hero, Muhammad Yunus, speak this past year at a local college; and I must say this man is truly a rare, living treasure in this world.  To be able to see his idea come to fruition in this Pennies A Day video in a very concise, easy-to-understand way is awesome. My students can see how such a simple idea can truly change the world and work towards eliminating poverty. Students get real insight into the lives and culture of the people of Bangladesh, and see their homes, their clothing, their food, their cooking stoves, their transportation, and their water sources and so on. We learn the differences between their banking systems, made up of a card table and benches, versus the brick-and-mortar banks students are familiar with here in America. It’s a powerful lesson.

I've now been doing this with my students over four years, and in that time our "One Million Dollar Team" on the Kiva website has loaned nearly $60,000, helping over 2,300 families in 67 different countries around the world- including the United States.

My ultimate goal is to have the kids take on the role of entrepreneurs, to go above and beyond to do things to help raise the money to help others. Some have chosen to do bake sales, others have made duct-tape wallets, while others have made jewelry to sell and have donated their profits.  This lesson encourages them to set goals, and to make real change in the world. 

The best part is to see a real change that occurs in the students’ thinking and behavior. They begin to think globally, as opposed to simply thinking about their own little home town. They can learn about geography, history, mathematics, economics--the possibilities are endless--all the while actually making a real difference in the world.  It simply doesn’t get any better than that.

Thank you, izzit.org.

No Longer OutCastes - Another New Release

As seen on public television!!

In India, those born into the lowest caste are breaking barriers! Find out how by watching our new video.

No Longer OutCastes is available for immediate downloading or streaming from www.izzit.org! You can also stream this program from our YouTube channel, Vimeo channel and Roku channel (internet connection and Roku streaming devices are necessary).

When Horses Fly in School by Jean Alicen Brady

Students in my class love the video When Horses Fly. This izzit.org video is about one of the most important inventions of our time - the jumbo jet. Students come along as 47 prize-winning thoroughbreds journey halfway across the globe. They learn that air freight is more than just about flying horses, but global business partnerships.

Whenever I use When Horses Fly, I stop the video at different points so we can discuss critical pieces of information. Allowing these pauses creates time for students to think about the video more carefully.

For the non-verbal students in our group, I have created social stories, which include pictures to help the visual learns. We use a magnet board to show the sequence of events, an activity in which the students happily participate. Since my students are low-functioning and autistic, we repeat the same cycle the following day for critical understanding.

On the following day we complete a crossword puzzle on the board based on When Horses Fly. Even those students who appeared not to be paying attention would moments later begin talking about the video and some of the things they liked about it.

Some of my co-workers were skeptical the videos from izzit.org would be accessible to our special-needs students. Unfortunately, there is a bias against students who are considered "different," and so often good material like this is not provided to them.

With this in mind, I invited some teachers into my room to see for themselves how the program can work. They were impressed and have since signed up themselves.

This year during spring break I went to a conference for izzit.org and it was a great learning experience for me.

Most special-needs children need visual and auditory lessons to learn. What an inexpensive way to do this - through free videos once a year! This is the best resource I have ever bought at any price. I would say to any teacher, if you have not tried out the program - you are really missing out. That goes especially for special education teachers: These films can be simplified based on a student's ability, but always expect more.

The izzit materials can easily be modified to meed the needs of these precious children. With videos like When Horses Fly, I have some of the teaching tools I need. It has given them the perfect opportunity to show not only that they are capable of learning, but it can be fun, too.

Jean Alicen Brady works for HAVEN, a day school for students with intense behaviors that cannot be tolerated in a general education environment. Working out of Mableton, Georgia, Jean is a dual diagnosis teacher, working with emotional behavior disorder students. She was a real estate agent until 6 years ago when she went back to school to become a teacher.

Writing Across the Curriculum by Love Merryman

How do you teach 7th grade students to write a five paragraph essay? You give them something to write about.

When newcomers arrive in St. Marys, a coastal city in South Georgia, their initial reaction often is, "This place is fabulous!" The residents here love their country and are dedicated to life in the United States, largely because Kings Bay Naval Base is located there. At least 40 percent of our students' parents are connected in some way to either King Bay or the naval base in Jacksonville, FL, just thirty miles away. Our students frequently have unique life experiences, having moved here from Spain, Italy, or other U.S. locations such as San Diego, California, Washington, or Hawaii.


Such diverse backgrounds elicited strong, informed opinions when the class began discussing American- made versus internationally-made products. Should we participate in the global economy extensively or just buy American? That was the impetus for excitement when the class viewed Free Trade, a wonderful izzit.org video. Taking the enthusiasm of seventh graders, and applying it to the five-paragraph essay assignment for all students was almost delightful when presented in segments.

First, the students watched the video, identifying important parts about trade and economy. Their discussion included comments about raw materials, transportation of materials, wages of workers, buildings for manufacturing, and tariffs. They noticed how Hong Kong, now part of China, had grown economically because of its free trade policy. They heard from Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, who discussed myriad factors affecting economic decisions in countries such as Estonia.

After brainstorming, they began the first leg of their assignment:"Write a paragraph about manufacturing a 'Made in the USA' product." The next day students shared their paragraphs and the conversation naturally led to production in a global economy. The second leg was to "Write a paragraph about producing and selling a product in a global economy," and the students had to look at the experience from a different perspective.

When they returned the next day, they were excited to share their writing and compare their results. They did an excellent job articulating their differences. Thirteen-year-olds were discussing their cell phones and the multitude of countries in which the parts may have been made. Next, the real body and writing challenge  began: "Choose a position, either American-made or globally produced and give at least four reasons to support your argument." Then a brave student asked, "What if I can't choose?" I suggested that if he couldn't, he should present at least three reasons for and against each perspective.

The next day again was spent sharing the delightful, informative paragraphs. And the information learned was resonated in the writing of the students: "A global economy could lead to more interdependent societies/countries, thus WORLD PEACE."

Not only had they watched an interesting and informative video, but they also had created the body for their essay and only needed to add an introduction and conclusion. Have you ever seen seventh graders excited about writing across the curriculum? I have, and they had something important to say!

Thank you, izzit.org!