All About JA of East Tennessee
Contact Information • Directions to Our Office • Our Mission
What is Junior Achievement?
JA Worldwide® is the world’s largest non-profit education organization dedicated to teaching young people about business, economics, and free enterprise. In 1919, Horace A. Moses, President of Strathmore Paper Company, and Theodore Vail, Chairman of American Telephone and Telegraph in Springfield, Massachusetts, established Junior Achievement to introduce young people to the American business system. They established a "learning-by-doing" program that allowed students in organized groups to run small businesses under the guidance of experienced business owners/volunteers. These students graduated from high school with hands-on experience regarding business operations. Eighty-six years later, Junior Achievement is reaching more than 3.9 million students annually in the United States and an additional 2.7 million in 97 foreign countries worldwide. Junior Achievement programs focus on seven key content areas: business, citizenship, economics, entrepreneurship, ethics/character, financial literacy, and career development.
What is the Role of Junior Achievement of East Tennessee?
Junior Achievement of East Tennessee's mission is to ensure that every child throughout East Tennessee has a fundamental understanding of the free enterprise system. More directly, JA's purpose is to educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, business, and economics in an effort to improve the quality of their lives. JA Worldwide offers seven sequential, in-school, grade-level, economics programs and one capstone experiential activity to elementary students, six economics programs and one capstone experiential activity to middle school students, and seven economics programs and one capstone experiential activity to high school students, all with one goal - to prepare students to be workforce ready!
Who is a Junior Achievement Volunteer?
Junior Achievement of East Tennessee is a volunteer driven organization. In order to fulfill classroom goals, volunteers must be recruited, trained, assigned to a participating classroom, evaluated, and recognized for their efforts each year. Junior Achievement volunteers, in cooperation with the teacher, lead structured activities and discussions on economics and business concepts.
During the 2004/2005 school year, more than 500 local business professionals, community leaders, parents, retirees, and college students assisted Junior Achievement of East Tennessee either by entering classrooms to teach JA economics programs, aiding in the rebuilding of kits, or offering helping hands on a variety of projects. JA volunteer consultants, who teach in the classroom, provide students with positive adult role-models. JA volunteer consultants impact students through illustrating and building self-confidence, developing skills and finding avenues of success, offering encouragement, and imparting the necessary enrichment needed to promote healthy bonds.
Who Junior Achievement of East Tennessee Reach?
Outreach for students has been tremendous, as 11,848 East Tennessee students received JA economics programs in more than 558 classrooms during the 2004/2005 school year. Students engage in a series of activities that focus on the free enterprise system, perform as simulated entrepreneurs, learn about personal financial planning, explore various careers and the success skills associated with career placement, and examine the United States' role in the world economy. JA economic programs emphasize roles of the individual, critical thinking, decision-making skills, and cooperative learning.
Additionally, the 2008 Groundhog Job Shadow Day program partnered 1,000 students from 13 Knox and Blount County Schools. GJSD program is designed to partner middle and high school students with local businesses, organizations, and government agencies in an effort to impart education on various careers, needed skills, and work ethics.
Please visit "Local Programs" to learn more about Groundhog Job Shadow Day 2005 and our Government Affairs Initiative, Capitol Hill Job Shadow.