Teaching the young about money?

[michel]

Having seen Maize's thread on teaching Religion at schools, I wonder, is there any for of teaching kids in the States how to manage (financially) when you leave school.

We don't have that here, and I think that this is one of the most basic areas that ought to be covered when a child leaves school. The ideas of budgeting, saving for a rainy day seem an anathema to most of the young (obviously no one on this forum is included!), who look at the cash that they have after earning it, and then proceed to spend it is quickly as possible on luxuries.

Any thoughts?

 

[CaptainXeroid]

IIRC, they taught us how to write business letters and fill out checks and other common paperwork involved in normal business, but not much about savings. Of course, that was a long time ago.

I think it would be a good idea for schools to teach at least the basic principle that money is not a race to see how fast they can spend it.

 

[Engyo]

Schools here are having too tough a time complying with Gov't regulations about what they must teach, to be worried about anything with real practical value like handling money........(oops, cynicism showing).......

 

[Crystallas]

Kids have enough problems with bad parents that expect school to learns them everything.

 

[Jaymes]

The only thing we were taught was how to write checks and balance a checkbook.

 

[michel]

The only thing we were taught was how to write checks and balance a checkbook.

Well, at least you knew when you had nothing left..........!

 

[cardero]

The first instance I child demonstrates a want for something that costs money the word EARN should be reinforced realistically.

 

[Tawn]

Having seen Maize's thread on teaching Religion at schools, I wonder, is there any for of teaching kids in the States how to manage (financially) when you leave school.

We don't have that here, and I think that this is one of the most basic areas that ought to be covered when a child leaves school. The ideas of budgeting, saving for a rainy day seem an anathema to most of the young (obviously no one on this forum is included!), who look at the cash that they have after earning it, and then proceed to spend it is quickly as possible on luxuries.

Any thoughts?

Yes, we live in Capitalist society where the goverment and everybody in power is determined to get people spend as much as possible. It strengthens the economy. They dont like it when people save money - so I cannot see anyone suggesting such a thing for our schools.
Everyone should learn a little about Marxism.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

My son is 10, and at the moment his class is doing an exercise whereby they get 'paid' $30 each for taking out the bins. Every week they have a - well, my son calls it a raffle and I'm at a loss to come up with the correct term at the moment - and the winners get allocated an 'area of responsibility', for which they get another hypothetical $30. The bins are a once a week thing, depending on the area of responsibility they get paid for that each time it's done, so there's a bit of variance in personal earnings there.
Out of that they have to pay tax,superannuation and health insurance, and they get 'docked' if they do the wrong thing (such as not doing their homework.). The remainder goes into 'savings'. The kid with the most money at the end of term gets a week off from homework.
We're very much in favour of that sort of thing. When I was at school the only thing we did was the chequebook thing like Jensa, which is great, except it's all about spending money rather than learning how to keep some in your pocket at the end of the day.
We gave my brother The Richest Man In Babylon to read recently (he's about 15, off the top of my head), which is a really basic starting point for financial education. It's a very easy read, and as it started out as a series of pamphlets put out by a bank, the chapters are really short and easy to digest for kids from about the age of 10 or so, depending on how sharp the child in question is.

 

[Fluffy]

Hmm this seems to bring 2 of my beliefs into direct conflict with one another. That money should be slowly discouraged and that children should be educated so that they can act effectively in the world in which they live.

I think education as a whole should be geared more towards practical things, like this, rather than making kids specialise so deeply in subjects when they may not have a clue what they wish to do as an adult. For example, will I ever find a practical usage for my indepth knowledge of Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Wolsey, beyond passing my AS exams this year? Unlikely. A course on economics or finance would be far more beneficial assuming I don't decide to move to a socialist paradise when I am older.

It is the basic attitude behind schooling that I think is the problem. Education is not aimed at teaching students knowledge but at getting them to pass their exams or giving them good GPAs. This has gotten to the extent where many of the teachers at my school will happily accept that a large majority of their students will cram the night before the exam, get an A, and promptly forget everything they have learnt because the grade is all that matters now. This is not right, IMHO, but I am uncertain what might solve it. Perhaps doing as michel suggests, and introducing more teaching aimed at helping students through life would ease the situation.

 

[Lintu]

We had classes where you had a budget of X dollars and had to pay rent and utilities and buy food. That's about as in-depth as it gets. One of my ambitions is to be a newspaper columnist focusing on personal finance for young people (teens and early 20s).

 

[Melody]

We don't have that here, and I think that this is one of the most basic areas that ought to be covered when a child leaves school. The ideas of budgeting, saving for a rainy day seem an anathema to most of the young (obviously no one on this forum is included!), who look at the cash that they have after earning it, and then proceed to spend it is quickly as possible on luxuries.

Any thoughts?

Children already have teachers on budgeting, saving, etc. Their parents. You can teach children in school about these things, but they'll more than likely do what their parents modeled because of greater exposure.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

Children already have teachers on budgeting, saving, etc. Their parents. You can teach children in school about these things, but they'll more than likely do what their parents modeled because of greater exposure.

That's very true, but if your parents aren't educated in that area - and many aren't - you're missing out on a jumpstart to financial security. It's much harder to get there when the lightbulb goes off and you educate yourself at 30 than it is if you're educated as a child.

 

[Crystallas]

how do you teach kids about money in a capitalist society?
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry, Im a nerd and think thats just hilarious(even though everyone is downright serious on this forum about these topics), its just a contradiction! You can teach kids how to fill needs to make themselves more valuable and successful, but besides ballancing a personal budget, and doing a checkbook... everything you teach these kids becomes obsolete once the school year is over. Thats why parents have to teach them whatever they know, regardless of how educated they are. Its really the only way, and teaching kids to much can be a bad thing, because the human mind can create fresh systems and problem solve uniquely as each person develops.You over-educate them, then you only help these kids find loopholes and become sloppy with money since they feel like they can take it for granted.

Parents allways need to fill in the GREY area. Never school, and money is a giant grey area until they are ready to start a CAREER and not just a job.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

how do you teach kids about money in a capitalist society?
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry, Im a nerd and think thats just hilarious(even though everyone is downright serious on this forum about these topics), its just a contradiction! You can teach kids how to fill needs to make themselves more valuable and successful, but besides ballancing a personal budget, and doing a checkbook... everything you teach these kids becomes obsolete once the school year is over. Thats why parents have to teach them whatever they know, regardless of how educated they are. Its really the only way, and teaching kids to much can be a bad thing, because the human mind can create fresh systems and problem solve uniquely as each person develops.You over-educate them, then you only help these kids find loopholes and become sloppy with money since they feel like they can take it for granted.

Parents allways need to fill in the GREY area. Never school, and money is a giant grey area until they are ready to start a CAREER and not just a job.

That's piffle...as soon as kids start doing jobs around the house and start getting pocket money it ceases to be a 'grey area' and becomes something they need to be educated about. People are sloppy with money because they don't know how to be any other way, not because they're overeducated in ways to gainfully utilise it.
The basics of money management - which is an area a lot of people seem to be lacking - remain the basics of money management at any time of the year; they don't become obsolete just because the bell heralding summer break has chimed.

 

[Runt]

I vaguely recall my economics class in high school teaching us how to fill out tax forms and work on budgets, as well as teaching us some practical stuff about credit cards, insurance, bank interest, the stock market, and other things of that nature. I remember at one point the teacher had us writing up practice budgets for people with incomes of $20,000 to $100,000 a year, including things like gas, electricity, rent/house payments, car payments, insurence (life, car, etc), emergencies, and luxeries/entertainment.


However, I must point out that this was a senior year class... and I think kids should start learning about this information earlier.

 

[michel]

We had classes where you had a budget of X dollars and had to pay rent and utilities and buy food. That's about as in-depth as it gets. One of my ambitions is to be a newspaper columnist focusing on personal finance for young people (teens and early 20s).

We have a charity called 'Citizen's Advice' here (you must have a similar thing) - when I stopped working, I very much wanted to specialize in helping not just the young - although they would have been the prime target in money management.

There are people 'out there' who go from month to month, with not a care, who look up at the beginning of the last week of the month and say "How can I buy food?-I have no money?"; the trouble is, I think a lot has to do with the 'live for today' mentality."You must spread some Karma around before giving it to Lintu again.I tried.

 

[Crystallas]

That's piffle...as soon as kids start doing jobs around the house and start getting pocket money it ceases to be a 'grey area' and becomes something they need to be educated about. People are sloppy with money because they don't know how to be any other way, not because they're overeducated in ways to gainfully utilise it.
The basics of money management - which is an area a lot of people seem to be lacking - remain the basics of money management at any time of the year; they don't become obsolete just because the bell heralding summer break has chimed.

So whats next? Minimum wage for kids allowances? I dont think you got my point.
You have thousands of job needs with diffrent wages. Dont you think if you took away from training on other universal skills to add more money management education that you would also see a decrease in people desiring small wage jobs that are more critical to society? I mean a decrease even more so than the decrease today?

Every kid is expected to get good grades, get a college degree, and many real world jobs need it as well as how many dont need all those top of the line requirements. Life is not about money, and some people think that you need to have a standard for everything, which cuts down on a lot of unique expression. Including that of our society relying on people getting into credit trouble and financial issues to support another side of the economy, while those people that have financial issues still have food and shelter. Unless you want to talk about forcing people who refuse to be educated to learn about finance, since those people are going to do whatever they want no matter what you teach them, and we shouldnt make changes to a system that focuses on the small number of failed examples when its generally successful. Nobody on this forum is poor, we all have access to a computer and internet, which nobody needs... I say that were doing pretty darn good.

If you really want to fix the problems that people have with money, dont teach them about money more than they are taught now, TEACH LAWS, a lot more than they are taught today.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

You can't educate people who refuse to be educated, and no-one is suggesting that, but the simple fact of the matter is that if you learn how to handle your money early on BEFORE you have commitments, then barring unforseen tragedy it doesn't matter WHAT you earn. It's not about how much you earn, it's about how you utilise it.
You can get the best job in the world with a 6 figure income, but if you're financially inept then you're worse off than a street cleaner on $15,000 who has a clue. It's no good educating people to get more money if they're too uneducated to do anything other than **** it up against a wall as soon as it's in their hand.
What stops people being willing to take lower income jobs is the emphasis on earning more money rather than using it constructively and staying at school longer, even though you may not actually be temperamentally suited to a university education and a desk job. At 15 you may be willing to jump at an apprenticeship that only pays you $190 a week in your pocket as a first year, but the time you're 18 and have completed high school that just isn't enough money for you when your friends can work part time at a supermarket and earn the same amount of money. Hence the drop in apprentice numbers.
You make the same mistake as everyone...your emphasis is on earnings not usage. If people were taught that it's not the amount it's the management, it wouldn't matter what jobs they had.

 

[almifkhar]

this is so stupid. why is it that parents think that the schools should be teaching everything? the job of the school is to teach children how to read and write, do math, and to learn history and science, not to teach about religion, budgeting a checkbook, sex, or morals. these are things that parents should be teaching their children. this is the biggest problem facing our families, some parents don't feel the need to parent their children and think that someone else should do it for them. its crap.