Friday, August 30, 2013

Strategies for Teaching Personal Finance to Teens

Strategies for Teaching Personal Finance to Teens



Well, the beginning of the school year is just around the corner. I've been thinking about what to blog about this school year, and I decided that it might be especially helpful to new teachers if they had a model to follow - at least starting out.  So this year I will add some teaching strategies to what I am already doing on my blog.

At first glance teaching Personal Finance may seem like it would be a hard class to teach and a little dry, and a little boring for the students. I find this is NOT the case at all. I have taught many different classes and Personal Finance is undeniably the most exciting and rewarding of them all.

My philosophy, when it comes to Personal Finance, is that students have more fun and the lesson sticks better if they discover the answers for themselves. For example, instead of lecturing the students about money and telling them that they need to learn to budget, I designed a budgeting game that the class plays during the trimester. Long before the end of the class students start asking questions like "Why isn't there ever enough money to go around in this game?" My usual reply is that they have discovered the meaning of the game. Often in life many of us live paycheck to paycheck, and sometimes that does not cover all of the bills. And of course, from there the conversation turns to budgeting - so now we are at a point where students are open to discussing budgeting, and they have their own unique ideas to offer on the subject.

With that said, my next blog will be on how I start the first week of school.

See you then. Thanks for stopping by!