Kids And Money - Teaching Our Children Well
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I was surfing about the net, as you do, and I came across this blog post Teach Our Children Well by Gail Vaz-Oxlade.
Gail talks about the generally poor level of financial education in schools (well, we’re all worried about that), but she gives some really great examples of individual class teachers who are doing some good work in teaching kids about money.
Maybe if we explained the reality of money to kids early enough, we’d have fewer kids dropping out of school. I mean, if you knew that if you settled for making $10 a hour you would have to work 70, 80 or 90 hours a week just to keep a roof over your family’s head and food on the table, maybe then you’d be less willing to blow school off.
My son’s Grade 6 class is learning about money. Ms. Moran has set up a town, Fletchville, in which the kids in her class live. They drew jobs from a jar and have to figure out how to live on their assigned incomes. They started by finding a place to live for the amount they could afford. Malcolm and his friends, Logan and Liam, combed through local papers and the internet to find a place within the geographical parameters set. I heard lots of talk of making sure the rent included utilities because “they can cost a lot of money.”
The project then turned to figuring out a meal plan - based on the food guide - and creating a priced-out shopping list so they would know what their food budget was. Wow! How many of you have done that?
And last week, they had to buy themselves cars. So they had to figure out what they could afford and go shopping for a car that fit their budget.
Doesn’t that sound like a fantastic exercise for 11 and 12 year olds?
Don’t wait for the lottery win that will put your child in a classroom with a teacher like this one - start now, running exercises like this with your own kids. If they have a blog, they can blog their research and results.
I find my kids work better on these things if outside kids are involved - fortunately,my girls have a cousin of a similar age, and her parents are THRILLED that she finds mathematical exercises so entertaining over at our place!
I know you’re busy, I know it’s hard to overcome the moaning and whining when they would rather be on the computer or the phone, I know sometimes it’s easier to put these things off, but hey, we all know it’s important, right? Just make it happen - you’ll be glad you did.
I highly recommend checking out the rest of Gail’s blog, too, because she tells it like it is!
