Two weeks ago, when I was at my TE301 placement, while the children ate breakfast the teacher asks if anyone brought in money to go to the bank. Whoever brought in some money got a money deposit bag. At that time I was clueless as to what was happening. After my CT was done taking care of this, she explained to me that once every month the students go to the bank in the gym, where actual bankers come and have them become familiar with the process. The bank made an agreement with the school and if a student collects at least $10 by the end of the school year, they'll be rewarded and will go to Barnes and Noble, where they'll be able to buy their own books.
The first graders all seem very excited about it. Also, not only are they learning what the value of a dollar is and how the bank process works, but they also do a lot more good deeds at home. To earn the money they bring in the children told us that they cleaned their rooms, washed the dishes, helped their grandparents, read to their younger brothers or sisters, etc.
Many schools seem to have found this activity to be extremely beneficial to students. NPR actually did a story about this called, Cafeteria Credit Unions Teach Students Money Skills. The article starts off by saying,
The recession has highlighted just how little some Americans understand personal finance, presenting an opportunity to start changing the way the young learn about money.
Some schools have their own credit unions run by students. A student actually said that he learned to save his money from his experiences the credit union. This is a basic life skill and if its taught from a early age it could benefit the students' lives dramatically when they grow up and start earning their own income.
So, even though the recession has made it evident just how much American citizens don't understand about their personal finances, but it's also made school budgets extremely tight.
Funding the programs may be unrealistic at a time when school budgets are so tight, Wheat says. But she says the more young people can learn about money in school, the better their chances of avoiding the financial pitfalls so many adults are facing today.
What do you think? Should schools put these school credit unions high up on their "To do" lists, especially since we are in the biggest recession since the Great Depression?
What a cool activity! I think this should definitely be encouraged in classrooms. It doesn't seem like that big of a time-consuming thing, but the kids would get a lot out of it. It seems like a small price to pay, but a big gain. I've never heard of this; it really is pretty neat.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great idea! When I was in elementary school, we had bank that would come once a month and we would be able to put money into a savings account. This was very beneficial, because I was able to see how money can grow interest and add up over time. This is so important, especially with the way our society is currently. Everyone is expected to go to college in order to get a good job, and college is expensive so it is great to start to save at such a young age!
ReplyDeleteI really do think this is so beneficial. To my knowledge/memory, I never had anything like this at my elementary school. It's not such a horrible thing in my case, because I was never a big spender or TOO irresponsible with my money; but then again I never really saved my money for too long. Maybe if that was taught to me in school, I wouldn't have made the mistakes I made with money when I was older.
ReplyDeleteThis activity could maybe prevent a lot of these kids from going into debt when they're older or whatever else that could possibly go badly when dealing with personal finances.