Pennsylvania program helps students learn entrepreneurial skills to 'win at capitalism'
Dr. Adelle Schade, founder of Total Experience Learning, and Nikita Patel, a student participant in the educational program to 'win at capitalism,' join 'Fox & Friends First.'
A groundbreaking Pennsylvania school program is creating future professional titans by equipping students with the drive and innovation needed to "win at capitalism."
Dr. Adelle Schade, founder of Total Experience Learning, developed the framework to infuse business principles into traditional classroom curriculum to help students hone in on their talents through invention, innovation and a learning-through-doing mindset.
"It really just nurtured my entrepreneurial spirit and allowed me to explore freely," Nikita Patel, one of the program's success stories, told "Fox & Friends First" Wednesday.
Patel said the program enabled her to discover her interests in bioactive glass particles and needleless drug delivery. She merged the two to develop a transdermal drug delivery system – a Band-Aid-like unit that uses nanotechnology to provide an extended release of medications through the skin.
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The Pennsylvania school program applies business principles to the classroom. (iStock)
"It provides a more comfortable form of chemotherapy, an alternative form of levodopa therapy for Parkinson's disease patients," she said.
"[It] can deliver a wide range of personalized medications. I patented the device and I founded a company for my product called Patch Life, and this program as a whole just taught me how to think and taught me how to find a problem and figure out how to create a solution."
Schade, appearing alongside Patel, spelled out the concept a bit more.
"Capitalism means private industry, and entrepreneurism and what we really need to do is find the talent that sits in our students across the United States and actually support and engage them in inventing, innovating, and changing our school systems' way of thought into that entrepreneurial mindset," she said.
This photo from the "Fox & Friends First" broadcast details Nikita Patel's needleless drug delivery system. (Fox & Friends First/Screengrab)
"That's what Total Experience Learning supports in our school systems," she added.
Schade developed the framework while studying business as a public science teacher, the New York Post reported. She told the Post she "realized that teachers are really project managers who are never taught the skills of project management," and implementing the new principles enabled her to make "drastic improvements" in her own classroom.
The report also said the program seeks to bring real-world applications to coursework, noting the example of student Addy Alexander, who applied poetry to a real-world situation by "aligning her reading to a business pitch and presenting it in a scenario mirroring the popular television show ‘Shark Tank.’"
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In this photo provided to "Fox & Friends First," Nikita Patel presents before a group of her peers. (Nikita Patel/Fox & Friends First)
Patel says the program teaches students things they'll need outside of the classroom – or the lab.
"Anyone can do research in a lab, but this program teaches you the entrepreneurial skills that you need to get yourself outside of the lab, learn how to pitch, how to present," she said. "Because how you present yourself in front of others is what's going to ultimately make you successful. This has helped me in a variety of pitch competitions, and it just helps you present to your peers."
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