THOUGHT BUBBLE: Financial Literacy

Take a seat! Let's talk about money!

Haha, but in all seriousness, today I'll be discussing Nicole Kruse's article Money Matters. The article prompted my peers and me to debate the importance of Financial Literacy and whether it should be considered a required curriculum.

3 QUOTES THAT MADE MY COGS TURN

 

"But what does that look like and how can independent schools prepare students for tomorrow?" 

As a former high school student who had the opportunity to take Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship classes. Depending on the instructor, the actual curriculum is fairly tame and simple to grasp. My financial literacy took a year to complete all of its lessons, whereas my entrepreneurship took a half year. Similarly to my high school, I strongly believe they should collaborate with colleges to provide college credits to students interested in business.                                                                                                                                                 I believe that an hour of financial literacy should be added to the curriculum every other day. We all agreed that students should take the class as soon as possible after we discussed how it would be integrated into our school. Consider learning the ins and outs of budgeting and investing during your freshman year of high school. Senior year is right around the corner, which is when many people start getting credit cards, loans for college, or want to go straight into the work field without thinking about saving or creating accounts.  

 

 

"Many independent schools have identified the need for financial education in the school setting, but what's missing is the curriculum to teach it." 

My peer mentioned the importance of finding people from that field to teach the curriculum. I couldn't agree with you more? My Financial Literacy teacher worked for and was a previous Entrepreneur.  

My teacher, on the other hand, made the curriculum bearable and practical. We would watch shows like Shark Tank to take notes on business proposals and the various investors. With crowd-funding, personal financing, venture capitalists, and so on, there are so many topics to cover! We also learned how to create products, pitch ideas, and locate investors. We created a fictitious business in my Entrepreneurship class. Making a business proposal to present to our "angel investors" classmates was part of this. This resulted in a fun and open classroom environment.

I recall having a lively classroom with open minds and learning a ton of market management tips and tricks. All of this is to say that financial literacy is critical and should be taught to new high school students and young adults. More information can be found in Nicole Kruse's article Money Matters! Please return and let me know what YOU think about the subject in the comment section below.