Financial Literacy in My Education (EDUC 4P27)

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After reading about financial literacy before meeting with my classmates to discuss this literacy, I started reflecting on whether or not I had any components of financial literacy during my own personal education growing up. I can only remember 2 instances where financial literacy. This reflection kept bringing me back to this popular post from the internet.

 

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The fact that it is so popular among social media demonstrates that students wish they had more financial literacy, as they see it as practical. If students received more financial literacy, they may feel more prepared for the real world. The only lessons I remember that taught us to be financially literate are from grade 5 and 6, none of which are in high school where students are closest to being citizens and independent decision makers. In this blog post I will explain the activities I did in school, and also expand upon how I would alter them based on what I have read about financial literacy. I hope that by blogging about these activities, I will remember them and implement them in my classroom in the future, because I did find the lessons educational, relevant, and engaging.

In Grade 5, we did a class project involving raising money and contributing to charity. As a class, we looked through the World Vision Catalogue and decided what we, as a class, wanted to purchase for children in poorer parts of the world. Our teacher guided our decisions by explaining how purchasing a goat, for example, would be beneficial because it would give the families goat milk that they could sell, and that buy buying multiple goats, the people could breed goats, resulting in more goats that they could sell to make more money. I cannot remember exactly what we had decided upon purchasing, but I know we had multiple different things we aimed to purchase. Next, we added up the total money we had to spend, and as a class, we had to raise that money. Our teacher helped us brainstorm ways that we, as children, could still raise money. She did not want us to simply be given money, but rather encouraged us to earn it. My friends and I did chores for family members, shovelled snow, and babysat, to name a few money raising methods. In the end, our class reached the goal and was able to purchase the goods from World Vision. This project took weeks, as the class was involved in the entire process from start to finish.

 

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I believe that this activity was successful in teaching us financial literacy, as it helped us understand that individuals in our society earn money by working. Meszaros and Hill (2015) discuss that students do not grasp the concept that money is earned, therefore financial literacy education can aid with this lesson, as this grade 5 activity did. The same article suggests that students learn that jobs requiring more skill and education receive more money (Meszaros & Hill, 2015). The activity I explained above did not teach this, however it could have been a follow-up lesson. Introducing concepts of finance early, especially the relationship between work and income, is cited as beneficial for children as the foundations for financial literacy and can be expanded upon throughout the years at school (Meszaros & Hill, 2015). Students younger than grade 5 could be exposed to this concept as well. In addition, this activity cultivated life skills such as cooperation, collaboration, communication between classmates, teamwork, goal-setting, and philanthropy. It was engaging and impactful, since I still remember this activity and I am proud of what my grade 5 class achieved.

The only other specific financial literacy activity I remember from my educational experiences was in grade 6 math. We were given the task to create our dream bedroom. Our teacher had given us a budget (I do not remember the exact number) and we had to find 10 things to purchase for our bedroom using flyers. We had to cut out the items we wanted to purchase and paste them in a notebook. We then had to calculate the price of the item after tax, and at the end, we had to be under our budget.

 

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This activity touched upon different aspects of financial literacy than the previously explained example. The focus of this activity was understanding tax that is applied at checkout, staying in a budget, and the mathematical calculations that are used to do these tasks. This task was extremely relevant, as planning a bedroom is a task that students likely see in their life. To improve this activity, I would talk about the reasons for taxes on products, so students realized that is not just number and so that they understand more of the financial world. In addition, the planning and goal setting (sticking in the budget, in this case) that was seen in both examples, is cited as part of financial literacy learning as students become critical thinkers about their finances (Blue, Grootenboer, Brimble, 2014).

In summary, financial literacy is included in schools, however maybe not to the extent students want it to be. And when it is taught, financial education can be fun, engaging, and long-lasting. These lessons are relevant to students and can be combined with other subjects in order to teach financial literacy in combination with other subjects and life lessons teachers are excepted to teach. Do you have any ways that you were taught financial literacy, good or bad? Will you teach it in your classroom, and how young would you start teaching it? Should it be included in the curriculum? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

 

References:

Blue, L., Grootenboer, P., Brimble, M. (2014). Financial literacy education in the curriculum:

Making the grade or missing the mark?. International Review of Economics Education, 16, 51 – 62.

Meszaros B. T., & Hill, A. T. (2015). Work, education, and income: Economics and financial

literacy in the early grades. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 28(1), 12 – 16.