Teaching Quantitative Decision Making to Grade School Kids By Anthony J. Fejfar, B.A., J.D., Phd.

Perpetual (C)Copyright and (P)Patent by Anthony J. Fejfar and Neothomism, P.C. (PA) I took a Graduate Business MBA Quantitative Methods Decision Making Course, and I thought that it would be fun, and interesting to try to teach these basic skills to grade school kids. The trick to decision making is to teach the student how to consider more than one possible future or plan, and enable the student to see that there is not just one future open to him or her. Of course, this is the conclusion of the Tom Cruise Movie, Minority Report. Quantum Physics

tells us that there is not just one future out there, but a manifold of probable or possible futures, and, Bernard Lonergan says the same thing in his book, Insight, as does Albert Lord North Whitehead, in his book, Process and Reality. Now, here is a basic exercise that a student could engage in. You place three paper drinking cups on a table. You then place a marble under one paper cup and rearrange the cups. Now, you then ask the student what are the odds that the marble is under one of the three cups. Upon reflection, we can see that the odds that the marble is under one of the three cups is 33% or .33. If you did the exercise over with two cups with the marble placed under one of the cups, the odds that the marble is under one of the cups is 50% or .50. Alternatively, if you took 4

cups and placed a marble under one of the cups, then upon reflection you would be able to see that there is a 25% or .25 probablity that the marble is under one of the cups. And, of course, if you took 5 cups and placed a marble under one cup, you can see that there is a 20% or .20 probablity that the marble is under one of the cups. Now, let us say that you were a lawyer who was trying to evaluate a case for trial. Let us

say that you have determined that for you to win, you must have a 75 % probability that the facts of the case are as you have judged them to be, and that also that there is a 90 % probability that the law is as you have judged it to be in order to win, and that you could prove this to a jury at a probability of at least 55%. And thus, the lawyer could reasonably tell his or her client that he or she has a 67.5% probability of winning, more or less. Thus, I am asserting that a basic, introductory Quantitative Methods Class could be taught to Grade School kids with good effect.