Hello, my name is Hani Ahmed, credential specialist and Beach 5 member of Rainier Beach Action Coalition (RBAC). Earlier this year, I began to develop my curriculum, ‘What is Business Anyway?’ In this class, we learned what makes a business, the different aspects of business, business terms and even how to start your own business.

An essential question for my first class is, “What is Business?”

A simple question, right? But it goes further than that. Attached to it is the expectation that you can explain not only what it is, but also use business terms and know what keeps a business running. With my class, I wanted to break it down in a way that is easier to comprehend. 

Here is a overview of my class that ran for 3 weeks:

Class 1:

IIThe first class is an introduction to the word “business” and how we use this word it in our day-to-day lives. Furthermore, business terminology takes up most of the class because of its significance to business. For example, the difference between a shareholder and a stakeholder is important,  and by using real life examples for each, we can commit these terms to memory. Finally, we had a discussion about the importance of terminology when pitching one’s business. At the end of this first class, I assigned homework to research a business that they liked.

Class 2: 

‘Deeper Dive’ is a deeper look into business and the types of business structures they can fall into. Together we analyzed these structures and identified pros and cons to them. After that, we continued with a few business terms before taking a kahoot! to test their knowledge from class 1 and 2. Like the class before, I assigned homework. This time it was to create a vision board for their business that they would then present in our third — and final — class. Zion Thomas, a fellow Beach fiver and Yatta Rising member was a great help in explaining vision boards.

Class 3:

‘Developing Business’ wraps up what we’ve learned in prior classes and lays out the steps to start a business. This class has more of a focus on the mental health aspect of employers and employees. We watched videos and read articles on both perspectives and had a discussion about it. Lastly, they presented their vision boards which allowed them to use visuals to represent their road to bringing their business into fruition. My class shows them that creating a business is not just a concept, but a reality they can make their own.

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